Too Perfect
by Terp4Life
Summary: Jeller fluff, with a slight twist. Set in s2... exactly what part will be clearer by the end of ch1, but I don't want to give it away here. ;) Rated T for later, just in case.
1. Soup

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)**_

It was the thing she had missed most about him, she realized. Seeing him smile at her. Even when his mouth wasn't smiling at her, there was something about his eyes that gave her almost the same feeling. It had been there… had it been there since the very beginning? It was hard to remember. That first day was so fuzzy now, after all this time and so much emotional upheaval. In any case, if it hadn't been there since the first day, it hadn't taken long. The way he looked at her had always been one of the two most important parts of their connection.

The other part, of course, was touch – which sounded a little weird, she knew, but it was the truth. They'd been strangers that first day, and even so, when she'd put her hand up to his face, so desperate to remember, she'd felt something. Again, it was almost surreal to think of that day now. To think of the person she'd been when she had had literally nothing – not even a name – and how far she had come. Some days, she almost felt normal. _Almost._

And even though she'd been called Jane Doe simply because the FBI had needed to call her _something_ , it had grown on her. Never mind the strange reactions that it got because the only time anyone heard the name Jane Doe, it referred to a dead woman without an identity. She'd been just that, for all intents and purposes. But it had grown on her in no small part because she simply couldn't grow tired of hearing Kurt say it. " _Jane_."

Well, she liked that way he said it _most_ of the time, anyway. There had, of course, been plenty of times when he'd said her name and it had _not_ come out as music to her ears. Especially in what she referred to as _the middle part_ of… well, whatever it was they had. Before he'd arrested her, but when she'd told him so many lies, he would say her name in the same warm tone as ever, but it had killed her a little bit inside because of how much she hated lying to him. That, of course, had paled in comparison to what had come next.

When she'd escaped from the CIA only to be dragged back to the FBI, _that_ had been the worst part, at least as far as the way Kurt said her name was concerned. The venom that was audible when he referred to her was like a knife to her heart. She shuddered inside each and every time. Really, he would have preferred that he simply not say her name at all, rather than to say it with a tone that told her in no uncertain terms _exactly_ how he felt about her. She'd known that she'd deserved it, of course, and she'd been equally angry with him. Even so, and even knowing very well that she'd _done this to herself…_ that hadn't made it easier to hear.

And now… well… things had stabilized again, even though it had felt like they never would. There was no fire in his voice anymore, thank goodness. No ice. Not a hint of anything in his voice that suggested what they had been through, nor was there any in his eyes or his touch. Things were better. Not the same as they'd been at the beginning, but also not the same as they'd been _in the middle_ … this was now, and it was simply… different. Better.

She'd been staring out the window, the cloudless blue sky almost making her forget how cold it was outside. It didn't _look_ frigid… but when she leaned her forehead against the glass, she felt the cold. It was a pleasant, she found, one that made everything that much more real – and she when things felt too good to be true, that was very helpful.

When she heard the knock on the door, she realized that more time had passed than she'd noticed. Last time she'd looked at the clock, there had still been twenty minutes left until he was due to arrive. Lifting her head off of the glass, she couldn't help but smile. Even before she'd crossed the room to the door, she could see the warmth of the expression that she knew she would greet her when she opened the door. Seconds later, when she made it across the room and he was standing in front of her, she saw exactly the gleam in his eyes that she had been anticipating. Suddenly, any other thoughts evaporated from her mind.

"Hey," she said, feeling heat rush to her face and stepping back so that he could come in, cold air rushing in along with him. "Come on in." She tried to peek into the shopping bag that he carried, but couldn't identify any of the many items inside. He'd said that he was going to come over and teach her to make soup – one of those cooking lessons that he'd promised her so very long ago, in that other lifetime… before everything had so quickly fallen apart. And now, here he was. It had been a long time coming, but as he stepped past her into the entryway and she closed the door behind him, none of that mattered. After all, he was here _now_.

He stopped a few feet inside, closer to her than she'd expected, and when she turned around after closing the door, she was surprised to find him right in front of her. Grinning self-consciously and feeling her cheeks heat up, she looked up at him. He'd set the bag he'd been holding down beside him, and was just standing there looking at her with _that_ smile. The one that made her knees weak.

 _Damn him and that smile_ , she thought. _No one should have so much power over someone else with simply a smile._

"It's cold out there," he remarked casually, and she noticed that his cheeks were pink from the cold. Unlike hers, which were pink because she was already flustered.

"Looks like it, you're all pink," she smiled. Before she could stop herself, she lifted a hand to his cheek, confirming that his skin was, indeed, very cold. Shock shot through her as she realized what she'd done, what she was _still doing_ , without even thinking. She did this sort of thing in her head sometimes, imagining how things could have been between them. Or she dreamed about it. But she would never have even considered doing it in real life.

She…

He…

Her thoughts stalled.

They…

Things between them just weren't there, and probably never would be. She'd accepted it. After all, how could she ever expect him to overlook what she'd done? So _many_ things that she'd done…

Tuning back into what was happening in front of her, it had really only been a split second since her hand had gone to his face, and she'd frozen so quickly, she hadn't been able to move it away. Looking up at him, now, she saw a glimmer in his eyes. His hand came up to cover hers, and for a few blissful seconds he pressed her fingers against his cheek, looking at her playfully. All too soon, it was over, his hand falling back down slowly, and hers following almost immediately. She looked down at the floor, flustered, and he chuckled softly, reaching down to pick up the bag where he'd set it on the floor.

They both began walking in the general direction of the kitchen, Jane searching her brain for _something_ to talk about – _anything_ that would help ease the discomfort that she now felt.

 _What in the world was I_ _ **thinking**_ _?_ she wondered, feeling a little bit frantic. The last thing she needed was to go back to things being awkward between them again… They'd come too far for that.

They both walked towards the kitchen, Kurt setting the bag he'd brought on the counter and then turning to face her. "Ready for your first cooking lesson?" he asked, grinning at her. If she didn't know better, she'd have said that there was amusement in his face, and she could only wonder if it was at her expense, from what had just happened. Still, his smile was almost hypnotic, to the point that she quickly decided that she didn't care if he was amused at her expense, as long as he kept looking at her the way that he was just then.

"I don't know how successful it's going to be, but… yeah, I guess I'm as ready as I'll ever be," she replied hesitantly.

Now he chuckled, looking genuinely amused.

"You mean you think there's something that you _can't_ do?" he asked, taking a half step closer to her.

"Oh, come on," she sighed, "there's plenty of things I'm bad at…" she looked down, suddenly at a loss for words. It was one of those moments where the past bubbled up inside her and she felt as though she had ruined everything. After all, if not for everything in their past, everything that had happened because of _her_ poor choices… well, who knows what might have been.

"And none of them matter," he told her, his voice suddenly serious. She looked up in surprise at the change in his tone, feeling her stomach flip flop unexpectedly as she saw the intense look in her eyes. They stood there, their eyes locked on each other for a few long seconds, neither of them moving. If she didn't know better, she would have sworn that he looked like he wanted to reach for her, and yet, he didn't. She tried not to be disappointed, but she couldn't help it. Once upon a time, he would have, after all.

 _Of course he didn't,_ she reminded herself, _why would he? That's not how things are between you two._

Looking in his eyes just then, she couldn't help but wonder if that could change, however. This felt… _different_ somehow. Slowly, her lips curled into a smile.

"Okay?" he asked her simply.

"Okay," she replied in a whisper, only then realizing that she'd been holding her breath for the past few seconds. She knew that she needed to get a hold of herself, but this feeling was just so addictive… really, she didn't _want_ to get a hold of herself. Turning slowly back to the bag, he began to unpack the contents. Pasta. Lots of different vegetables. Spices. Even a large spoon and what looked like an oversized pot came out of the bag.

She leaned against the counter with her right arm, standing on his right and simply watching. "Wow," she said when he'd emptied the bag and folded it up, setting the box of pasta on top of it, "this is quite an operation."

"Well," he said, in the same way that he'd said that word so many times. There was something so endearing about the way he said it… with a small shrug and a grin. It was just so damn _cute_ …

She told herself to _stop_ appreciating it, appreciating _him,_ because it was simply not going to help her, only hurt her later. Though she knew that that thought should distress her, she found that she liked the feeling it gave her too much to bring herself to care.

"I knew you weren't exactly stocked up for cooking," he told her, looking sheepish.

This was dangerous territory they were veering towards. After all, the reason she had basically no possessions was because it had all been confiscated when she'd been arrested. _By him_. As she watched, she could see just how carefully he was choosing his words, and how hard he was working to keep his tone light. The conversation could easily have gone bad from there, if they hadn't been as attuned to each other as they were. Luckily, that didn't seem to be a problem they were having that day. The way he handled the comment so perfectly, with such sensitivity, just made her heart ache. He hadn't deserved what she had done to him. To _them._

 _Careful,_ the voice in her head told her sharply. _You know you're dancing awfully close to the fire, and you're the one who's going to get burned._

She knew that, and yet, at that moment, she didn't care. If this was all that there was going to be between them – this seeming emotional limbo that felt on the verge of _something_ , and yet… _not_ – while it wasn't what she wanted, she would have to settle for what she could get. She knew better than to hope for more. That would only lead to disappointment.

 _Are you sure about that?_ the voice in her head asked uncertainly. _Because from where I'm sitting, this doesn't look like_ _ **not**_ _._

Ignoring the voice, she focused on Kurt. "Who has time to learn to cook when you're always having to save the world?" she said with a smile and a shrug. "And I've survived this long without cooking."

"You're right, you have," he said, suddenly looking thoughtful. "You know… Some people say there's more to life than just surviving." His eyes danced with light, as once again he stared into hers, and she couldn't help but wish that he wouldn't tease her this way. It was almost painful, the way he was looking at her, because she knew that nothing would come of it.

 _I'll say it again,_ the voice in her head asserted, _It doesn't look like nothing from my angle…_

"Maybe," she admitted slowly, wondering if maybe he was trying to tell her something, while at the same time trying to retain control of her emotions, "but surviving is a pretty good start."

"It is," he confirmed with a nod. "And now that we hopefully have a handle on that part, at least for the moment, maybe we can work on the next step. Beyond just surviving."

She shrugged, feeling her cheeks heat up yet again, and wondering whether she should be taking his words to mean more than he was actually saying, or not. It was making her anxious, to be honest.

"I don't know what that feels like," she said. After all, it was the truth. For as long as she could remember, she'd just been trying to survive. The words came out in a whisper, to her surprise, and it was only after the words had left her mouth that she realized that she had said the same ones to him long ago, on her first night in her original safe house, after he'd assured her that she would be okay.

She thought that he may have remembered it too, because his expression changed, a knowing smile spreading silently across his face.

"We can work on that," he said, still looking at her intently. She wasn't sure how much more staring into his eyes her heart could safely take before it burst, and she looked away then out of necessity. The feeling of his eyes on her remained for a few more seconds, before he turned to look at the ingredients. She glanced at him, then looked in the direction of the counter, as he was.

"So what's the first step?" she asked.

"Clean hands," he said, turning sideways to grin playfully at her. She couldn't help but be grateful for the change in his tone, because as much as she liked it, she wasn't sure that she could take any more of the serious way he'd been looking at her. Not just then, anyway.

"What are you trying to say?" she replied, pretending to pout.

"Nothing," he said innocently, watching her with that playful smile. Feeling more than just a little self-conscious again, she stepped around him, to the sink. Again, she could feel him watching her, but deliberately didn't look at him as she washed her hands and then dried them on the one clean dishtowel that hung off of the cabinet door below the sink. Stepping aside, she gestured to the sink.

"Next," she told him. Shaking his head and smiling at her, he stepped forward to wash his hands, drying them on the same towel.

For the next ten minutes they worked on chopping vegetables, Kurt showing Jane the proper technique, as they made friendly small talk, working side by side. Occasionally their arms brushed against each other, causing them to glance at each other and smile awkwardly. She apologized, as did he, as if for some reason she thought that it had bothered him.

 _He certainly doesn't_ _ **look**_ _like someone who's bothered by brushing up against you,_ the voice in her head pointed out, but again she ignored it. She needed to keep her mind from running away with her.

Jane was almost finished chopping mushrooms when the knife strayed just a little too close to the end of her left index finger. Inhaling sharply as she felt the stab of pain when the blade pierced her skin, she quickly dropped the knife on the cutting board, looking at her finger as blood quickly began flowing from the almost invisible but very painful opening. For a second she just stared at it in surprise.

Kurt, of course, had looked over at her as soon as she'd gasped, and he saw exactly what had happened. "Run it under the water," he told her. "I'll find you a band aid." Then, realizing that he was at Jane's place and not his, he added, "Do you _have_ a band aid anywhere? _"_

"Oh, uh… I'm really not sure…" Jane said as she moved to the sink. "I don't think I've ever looked." Suddenly she felt ridiculous. How _had_ she managed to live here so long and not know this? In the time that she'd lived there she'd been shot, but hadn't ever had a paper cut?

From his expression, she guessed that he regretted asking the question. "That's okay," he said calmly. "Keep running it under the water and I'll take a look." Smiling gratefully, she watched him disappear around the corner to the bathroom. A minute later, she heard him walking further away still, no doubt on the way to look in the cabinet in the bathroom that was off of her bedroom. If it had been anyone else, the thought of them just walking straight into her bedroom would probably have made her uncomfortable. It was rare that anyone else was even in her house at all, much less in her bedroom, after all.

But like everything else, because it was Kurt, it was different. Granted, she still felt a little funny about it, but in a different way. She focused on staring at her finger under the cool water, trying not to think about it. He was getting her a band aid. There was no reason to feel weird about that.

Another minute later, he returned with a small box, smiling triumphantly. "You _did_ have band aids! A whole first aid kit, in fact. You really didn't know?"

She just shrugged, honestly surprised. "Nope. Where was it?" she asked, figuring that she should probably know for the future.

"Under the sink in your bathroom… the one in your room," he replied. She couldn't help but think that he looked slightly embarrassed when he said it. He tore off a paper towel from the roll next to the sink, and then pressed the handle down on the faucet, turning off the water. Without a word, he held out his hand and took hers, patting it dry.

Once again, she was amazed just how gentle he could be, like she had been many times before. They had sparred on many occasions, and fought for real that one time that she didn't like to remember – _in the middle_. She knew that he could easily take down an opponent with deadly force, just like she could. And yet, the way he held onto her hand at that moment, she would never have known it. Folding the paper towel, he pressed it slightly against the tiny cut at the end of her finger with just the right amount of pressure, his fingers wrapping gently around her hand.

It wasn't the first time her hand had been in his, of course, but from the way her stomach flip flopped, she would've thought that it was. They stood there in front of the sink, turned toward each other, her hand now cradled gently in both of his.

 _I wonder if he can hear how loud my heart is beating,_ she couldn't help but think, looking up at him slowly. She swore it was beating **that** loudly. He was still holding the folded paper towel against her finger, the box of band aids lying ready on the counter nearby.

 _Breathe,_ she reminded herself.

Slowly he withdrew the paper towel from her finger and looked down at it. The red slowly reappeared, and he pressed the paper towel against it once again. "Hold onto that for a second, okay?" he asked, his voice much quieter than it had been before. Nodding, she brought her other hand up to hold the paper towel as Kurt's hands released hers. Watching as he took a band aid out of the box and unwrapped it, she couldn't help miss the sensation of his hands around hers.

 _Seriously, stop it,_ she warned herself. _You're not doing yourself any favors here. Quite the opposite, actually. It's going to be worse if you let yourself hope._

Leaving the wrapper from the band aid on the counter, he lifted his hands to hers again, motioning for her to remove the paper towel from her finger. She did just that, exposing the cut so that he could wrap the band aid carefully around her finger. His fingers lingered on hers for a few seconds, and then a few more, slowly moving back around them until he was cradling her hand just like he had at first. Again, her stomach flip flopped, this time more uncomfortably.

 _What's he doing?_ she wondered, suddenly panicking.

 _Really, you haven't figured it out yet?_ the voice in her head asked her incredulously.

"Better?" he asked, looking at her with an expression in his eyes that she'd been denying she saw until this point.

 _What_ _ **is**_ _it?_ she wondered. _Because it couldn't be…_

"Yeah," she said, finding suddenly that she was having trouble thinking of anything else to say. "Thanks," she added, and then, "I could have done that, you know."

"I know," he assured her with a calm smile, one that seemed to imply that he knew something that she didn't. "But you didn't have to." Besides, you didn't even know that you had band aids. He shrugged, as if to assure her that it was no big deal, looking down at her hand. She looked down too, to where he was still cradling it lightly in both of his.

"Of course," he said after staring at their almost intertwined fingers for a few seconds, "If I hadn't come over, you wouldn't have been chopping anything, including your finger, so you wouldn't have _needed_ a band aid."

There was a warning bell sounding somewhere in the back of her head, growing louder and louder as the seconds passed.

Not trusting herself to look up at him, she shrugged. "It was worth it," she assured him quietly, and felt him looking at her. Really, she was thinking more about _everything_ that had happened between them than just cutting her finger, but she didn't think it would help to even think it, much less to say it out loud.

She wondered if she looked as terrified as she suddenly felt. At that same time, whatever it was that was happening felt so completely perfect, she didn't _want_ it to stop. To say that her emotions were confused would have been quite an understatement.

If she was being honest, she had forgotten all about the soup they were making, and when she saw him glance sideways at the ingredients for the soup, it took her a few seconds to tune back in to what he was looking at. The liquid part of the soup sat on the stove, apparently now ready for them to put in the vegetables and chicken. Reluctantly, he let go of her hand and turned to face the counter, picking up the cutting board that he'd filled with chopped ingredients and then moving toward the pot. As she watched him use the knife to push everything slowly into the pot, and then rinse off the cutting board in the sink, she tried to convince herself to calm down. When he was done, he nodded toward the cutting board she had been using before she'd cut herself, still lying on the counter.

"Go ahead and put everything in," he told her.

After cutting the last few pieces that she'd had left when she'd cut herself, she did the same thing that Kurt had, using the knife to carefully push everything off the cutting board into the soup, then walked around him to the sink as he took her spot by the stove to do the last few steps of the recipe.

"We need to add a few spices," he said, consulting the recipe on the counter and then pointing out the measurements he was using as he added each one. "Now we turn it down a little so that it doesn't boil over," he told her as she rinsed off the cutting board, "and set the timer for ten minutes." He stood back and smiled at her, and again she heard alarm bells in the distant recesses of her mind. "But we can't go too far, because in ten minutes it should be done. We'll at least need to check on it."

Nodding slightly, she replied, "But we could go sit down, at least. That's not too far, right?"

"Nope, that's perfect," he said, and when she moved out of the kitchen toward the living room couch, he followed her. They settled themselves on the couch side by side, Kurt sitting down a little closer than Jane expected. She didn't dislike it at all, but again, she got the sense that she probably _should_ be concerned… and she might have, if her willpower hadn't just completely vanished as she looked into his eyes.

 _You know what's happening, right?_ the voice in her head asked.

 _Yes, I'm afraid I do, and it's probably going to backfire on me,_ she replied. _But right now I don't care._

They both turned slightly, so that they were facing each other. Her right elbow leaned against the pillow on the back of the couch casually, her hand up in the air, and Kurt extended his left arm along it as well, so that his fingers touched her elbow gently. Suddenly, it was as though everything started moving in slow motion.

"So what did you think of your first cooking lesson?" he asked her. Looking down at her left hand in her lap, focusing on her injured finger, his right hand moved to hers, taking it between his fingers and gently turning it over. Everywhere that his fingers traced across her skin left a trail that felt like electricity, so that after only a few seconds, her whole hand was tingling. She stared down at it and then slowly raised her eyes to meet his, finding him looking at her with a calm smile. She felt anything but calm, and her expression was more nervous than smiling.

Letting out the breath that she'd been holding without knowing it, her lips slowly curled into a smile as well. Despite the fact that her heart was hammering in her chest, his smile somehow seemed to melt away the nervous energy, leaving only a feeling that this was exactly where she was supposed to be. No matter how much she might have worried about whether or not she would regret anything that might happen next, at that moment it seemed impossible to believe that it wasn't the right thing to do… because it just _felt_ like the right thing to do.

"It was pretty good, cooking related injury notwithstanding," she replied. "I have a good teacher." She watched as the skin around his eyes crinkled adorably when his smile widened at her compliment, then lowered her arm down flat on the pillow beside her. Her arm was now extended the same way his was, back towards _him_ , and his fingers immediately moved to her arm and began tracing the ink lines of her tattoos. It was impossible not to smile at the sensation. It felt like _so long_ since he'd done that, even just on her hand. Without even realizing it, she leaned closer to him, looking down at his fingers.

His left hand now on her forearm and his right hand holding her left, running his thumb over it almost reverently, she realized that she was now in uncharted, dangerous territory. She couldn't say that she didn't want to be here, and yet, it was a little bit terrifying at the same time.

Looking back up at him slowly once again, she couldn't think of a single thing to say. Once again, his smile centered her, calming her just enough that the world momentarily stopped feeling like it was tipping dangerously out of balance. The hand that had been tracing tattoos on her forearm now slowly moved to her cheek, his thumb swiping back and forth gently several times. She was fairly sure that her heart was going to burst just then from the sheer amount of emotion she felt. He kept looking into her eyes, and she found herself now unable to look away. Somehow she felt nervous and calm all at the same time.

It occurred to her that he was about to kiss her just before he actually did. The realization had made her smile, and as she moved forward slightly to meet him partway, any thoughts that she might have had that this wasn't absolutely the right thing to do vanished into thin air. _Of course_ it was the right thing to do. She'd been fooling herself when she'd told herself that she could ever be happy with anything less than this, and she was relieved to learn that it wasn't too late for the two of them, after all.

When they broke apart a few minutes later, after a sweet, unhurried kiss, the first thing she noticed when she opened her eyes was that he was already looking at her, his expression almost one of wonder. He smiled at her uncertainly, and even though _she'd_ been the one who had been feeling uncertain, his expression was so endearing at that moment, she couldn't help but smile back broadly, watching as he appeared relieved. His hand was still on her cheek, and now it moved to the back of her neck, tugging her head slightly forward, as their foreheads fell gently against each other, as did their noses, which made them both chuckle.

"I think I might like cooking," she told him in a whisper. She was rewarded with his quiet laughter, and his left arm squeezing her neck and then moving down to pull his arm tightly around her shoulders, tugging her into a hug that she returned gratefully. She shifted slightly so that she was sitting more comfortably against him, both of his arms now around her. "And I definitely like the waiting for the food to be done part."

"Me, too," he whispered, kissing her forehead, and then leaning his face against the spot where he'd just kissed her.

 _This is too perfect,_ she thought, blissfully happy.

And then just like that, the moment was over. The timer blared from the kitchen, and they both looked over at the offending noise maker in annoyance.

Except, the noise wasn't a timer, and suddenly, the perfect world around her faded away, dissolving like chalk in a rainstorm until there was nothing left.

Jane turned over, moaning slightly as she awoke to realize that it had happened _again_. She pressed her face into her pillow as hard as she could and counted down from ten, then started again at twenty and did the same thing. Once she got to zero for a second time, she turned her head, her cheek feeling the wetness on her pillow that her eyes had just left there.

 _Goddammit,_ she thought, trying to breathe deeply and begging herself not to fall apart.

The noise of her alarm hadn't stopped, of course, and she pushed herself wearily out of bed to shut it off, her head now pounding. It figured that she had finally fallen asleep barely an hour before her alarm went off after tossing and turning most of the night. And _of course_ she dreamed about him again. It seemed to happen a _lot_ these days… the dreams were blissful, and yet, that just made waking up more painful each and every time, having been reminded one more time of what she didn't have. What she might have had, had she made different decisions. And now, what she would _never_ have.

 _But you didn't make different decisions,_ she told herself. _And you missed your chance. You didn't really think you deserved that kind of happiness, did you?_

Feeling weary, sad, and slightly sick to her stomach, she pushed herself out of bed to walk across the room and turn off her alarm. At that moment she just needed the noise to stop, and just maybe that would help the aching in her heart stop, as well – though she doubted it.

With the room finally silent, she walked slowly back and perched at the end of her bed, holding her head in her hands, her elbows pressed into her knees. _Don't cry,_ she ordered herself, but it was already a lost cause. She had had so much, and she had lost it all.

 _You did this to yourself._ The words rang out tonelessly in her head. It was the truth, she _had_ done this to herself. Nothing would change that. There wasn't much else she could do, except to try her best to atone for her sins, even though it would never be enough. She still owed the team – owed _him_ – that much.

 _How can you say that you owe them, after what they let happen to_ _ **you**_ _?_ the voice in her head asked in disbelief. She was still so conflicted about it all.

 _I don't think I deserved that,_ she replied, forcing her breathing to slow down by sheer willpower. _But being angry doesn't help._ She wasn't very good at not being angry, at least not yet, but dammit, she was trying. After all, she did have to face them all every day. They had enough anger with her for everyone, and when she thought about it, she could understand why. There was nothing she could do about it. Really, this was just a different kind of punishment than what the CIA had put her through, and she would bear it the best she could.

Standing up again, she pushed herself toward the bathroom. She would shower, and get dressed, and go into the FBI and work to try to bring down Sandstorm. Just like she did every day. That was all she had left. After that… after Sandstorm was finally out of the picture? Well, she couldn't think that far ahead. There was no future to look forward to beyond taking down Sandstorm, so why bother even thinking about it?

These dreams had plagued her for the past week, and she'd decided that they were just another form of punishment. The pain in her heart when she woke up from them almost made her wish that she could trade them for the kind of physical torture that the CIA had used. Her body, she knew, could withstand a lot. Her heart, on the other hand… Well, she wasn't sure how much her heart could take.

Focusing on forcing herself to go through the motions of getting ready for the day, she reminded herself that she could not afford to indulge in thinking about these dreams once they ended, as she forced the feeling she'd felt at the end, that blissful happiness, from her memory. It wasn't going to happen, and thinking about it would only make her feel worse.

Pushing the dream from her mind, because she had no other choice, she went on with her day.

 _A/N: Okay, I know, I know, don't kill me! I know the end is not exactly happy, but here's the thing… this story isn't over. I had this idea to write a series of these "horribly happy" dreams (i.e. the ones that must have – at least as far as I'm concerned – tortured Jane during s2, when the team hated her, just like that one that we actually saw on TV). So let's say that's true - it justifies writing all kinds of random Jeller fluff without regard for a real plot (because let's be honest, who needs plot when there's Jeller fluff? Okay, I know that justification is also not necessary… but never mind). I even have an idea how to tie it all together when I decide to end it, but again, there can be_ _ **lots**_ _of fluff before that happens, because who knows how many of these dreams she had? And because there's not a real plot and therefore not a distinct number of chapters before the plot ends… It goes on until I decide it stops. I didn't want to put all this in the description because at least for the first chapter, I wanted the dream part to be the twist at the end. So I hope you're not_ _ **too**_ _mad at me, and that you'll read the next one when I get it written. :)_


	2. No Rush

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :) I also absolutely do not own the song "All This Time" by OneRepublic, except on iTunes.**_

 _A/N: Okay, I apologize again for the trickery in chapter 1, maybe it was mean…but hopefully if you already know going into this chapter what it is – a dream – you can still enjoy it and not end up disappointed? Maybe? Does it make you feel better if I point out that I only write happy endings (check all my other fics if you aren't sure)? In any case, thank you for coming back for chapter two. I promise to write something very fluffy to make it all up to you._

She couldn't remember how long it had been since she'd been at his apartment, only that it had been long enough that while it all felt familiar, she also felt slightly self-conscious. But he'd promised to make her dinner, claiming that after their last close call while chasing down a suspect who had very nearly succeeded in killing them, as well as the fact that he now owed her at least four or five drinks, he wanted to up the ante to dinner. He'd been so sincere about it, and she'd been unable to say no. More importantly, she hadn't _wanted_ to say no. She didn't know what it _meant_ , exactly, only that the rest of the team wasn't invited. Only her.

And so here she was, walking through his doorway and smiling at him. How could she not, when he was looking at her with that smile that made her forget everything else around the tiny little bubble that surrounded the two foot radius in which the two of them currently stood? Even the other side of his apartment was too far away to be real to her just then.

As soon as the door closed, he took a step closer to her, now squarely inside her personal space. "Can I take your coat?" he asked, his hands already on her shoulders, pushing her jacket down her arms. She smiled with a mixture of amusement and surprise. She certainly hadn't expected _that,_ but she also wasn't going to complain…

"Thanks," she said, trying to pretend that she didn't feel electricity moving through her and letting him slip her jacket off of her arms, revealing something a step above her regular t-shirt. Tonight she was wearing a V-neck white shirt with three-quarter length sleeves, the brightness of it against the dark ink of her tattoos a stark contrast to what she usually wore. She'd looked at herself in the mirror for a long time before leaving home, trying to figure out if she liked the different look on her. From the way Kurt was looking at her after helping her take off her jacket, she'd decided that she he liked this look.

He managed to hang up her jacket without actually taking his eyes off of her, and she began to feel more than just a little self-conscious. He walked back over to where she was standing, both watching each other carefully. He stopped just inside arms' length from her, but didn't reach for her. Instead, he just looked into her eyes.

"You look beautiful," he said simply as his expression softened, and suddenly he looked more like himself again, not _quite_ as intense as he had a few seconds before – though the look on his face was still relatively intense. She found herself able to relax again as well, and she leaned toward him unconsciously.

"Thanks," she said, feeling herself blushing. His hands grasped her arms lightly, just below her shoulders, hesitating there for only a few seconds before slowly running down to her hands, grasping them gently in his.

"You're early," he told her, leaning his face towards hers playfully but stopping a few inches away. He seemed to be enjoying this… and she wasn't going to try to claim that she wasn't, as well. "Dinner's not ready yet."

"Sorry," she said in a voice that didn't sound sorry. Though she turned to glance away, she found it impossible not to look right back at him almost immediately. "I just… couldn't wait."

"I'm glad you didn't," he told her, letting go of her hands and finally putting his arms around her, pulling her closer. Her arms automatically wound around him as well, her forehead brushing against his cheek. As soon as it did, he turned toward her and kissed the spot that had touched his cheek, adding, "I missed you."

"Didn't we only leave work two hours ago?" she asked in surprise, grinning slightly. When he made a shocked face back at her, she smiled at him and added, "I missed you, too."

"Dinner won't be ready for about a half hour," he told her, glancing back at the kitchen.

"That's fine," she assured him, turning her face so that there was less than inch between them. "No rush."

Their eyes locked on each other, and for a few seconds the world simply stood still. They spent their days so consumed with Sandstorm and looking for leads on how to bring them down, that they had trouble turning _off_ that setting in their brains, the one that constantly worked overtime to try to anticipate the group's next move. That is, except when, like now, they stared into each other's eyes. The look between them was so powerful, not even Sandstorm could break the connection – and Sandstorm had proven time and time again to have connections that _no one_ could have expected.

Slowly, Kurt's apartment rematerialized around her, as Jane's momentary sensation of herself and Kurt being the only two people in the world faded. She had always loved this place. Where her safe houses had, even at their most furnished and personalized, always been so minimal and stark, his apartment was warm and homey without being cluttered in any way. It was very… _Kurt_.

 _That's why you like it so much,_ she told herself. Without even realizing that she was doing it, she smiled at him.

She now noticed for the first time that there was music playing in the background, though, as usual, she didn't know the song. From the look on his face, he'd just tuned in to the music as well.

"… _All this time  
We were waiting for each other  
All this time  
I was waiting for you  
We got all these words  
Can't waste them on another  
So I'm straight in a straight line  
Running back to you…"_

Suddenly they were moving ever so slightly, no longer simply standing there and holding onto each other, but dancing along with the music. Her arms moved from his back, sliding under his and then up over his shoulders, clasping behind his neck. She grinned crookedly at him, and he rolled his eyes and shook his head, not needing to be told what she was thinking.

"Sarah downloaded a lot of music onto my phone a while back," he said in reply to her unspoken question. "Apparently she thought my collection wasn't complete without some… slower ones."

Jane chuckled at the idea of his sister covertly putting love songs such as the one that was playing onto his phone – had she really imagined that her brother would stumble across them at an appropriate time? In any case, it seemed that he had.

"So, Sarah's the romantic in the family?" Jane asked with a grin.

"Definitely," he replied, looking into her eyes.

"I don't know," she said slowly, "there seems to be hope for you, too, I think."

"Oh yeah?" he asked in amusement. Something in his face changed then, as if he'd thought of something that bothered him.

"Yeah," she said softly, touching the tip of her nose against the tip of his to get his attention back to her. Whatever had been bothering him for those few seconds must have disappeared then, because he beamed back down at her once again.

The chorus of the song came on again, and again the two of them were quiet, simply watching each other and taking in the slow melody.

After another minute, the song faded to nothing, and something else came on. Her attention, however, stayed on him. "I'm glad you were too choosy," she told him, lying her head against his shoulder.

He'd already been thinking of the first time he'd danced with her, that day at Rich Dotcom's party, which had also been the first time they'd gone undercover together, so the fact that _she'd_ just referred to it as well had surprised him – though maybe it shouldn't have, he realized. It wasn't unusual for them to be startlingly in synch with each other.

Chuckling softly, he shook his head. "I was just thinking about that day," he told her, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. Then, after a pause, he added, "I'm glad, too." Neither of them brought up his less than choosy moments that had come in between that day long ago and the present. They had been painful for Jane to live through, at the time, though she hadn't necessarily understood exactly _why_ she'd felt them so deeply at the times they'd happened… but they didn't matter now – like everything else she and Kurt had been through, really. What mattered was that she was here _now_. Not Allie, and not Nas. Jane had made plenty of mistakes of her own, after all, so she couldn't exactly fault him for his decisions along the way. It had all worked out in the end.

She hadn't realized that her thoughts had wandered and that her eyes were closed until suddenly she felt him pulling her closer. "Hey," he whispered in her ear. She opened her eyes and lifted her head back up so that she could look into his eyes.

"Hey yourself," she said, kissing him lightly and then leaning back, feeling pleased with herself when she read the surprise on his face. His expression changed to determined, and he leaned forward towards her, kissing her just a little more urgently. However, when she didn't pull back again he seemed to slow down, content to know that she wasn't trying to go anywhere. When they finally put the tiniest amount of space between them a few minutes later, their lips still technically still against each other, just not quite as tightly, she couldn't help but smile again.

"Where are you going?" he whispered.

She couldn't help but laugh softly at him then, their noses bumping together as she replied, "I haven't gone anywhere, silly. I'm still kissing you." It was true. Their lips continued to press against each other gently, making contact and then releasing, then making contact again, even as they were talking. The sensation was amusing and not at all unpleasant, which made both of them smile. Their matching grins also made the kiss feel much different than usual. _Better_ than usual, which she hadn't known was possible.

In the end, it was Kurt who moved back first, out of kissing range, to where he could focus on looking at her. When he did, the look in his eyes all of a sudden left Jane slightly concerned.

"What's wrong?" she asked, wondering what could be causing the look of intense concentration she saw.

His smile returned quickly then, as if he hadn't realized he wasn't smiling, but it was an even more intense version of the one he'd given her before. Shaking his head, he brought his hand up to her cheek. "Absolutely nothing," he said quietly. "The opposite, actually." She relaxed, figuring that he was simply overcome by his emotions. After all, that had happened to her many times with him. At the same time, their foreheads tilted gently towards each other, and when they met, suddenly he wasn't the only one feeling overcome – the wave of affection for him so strong that she felt an ache in her chest.

Her hands unclasped behind him, and her left hand gravitating lightly to the skin on the back of his neck. Her right hand moved back over his shoulder, coming to rest against his chest, just over his heart. Even through the cloth, she could feel his heart beating. In only a few seconds, his hand handed on top of hers, his fingers squeezing hers gently.

"I love you," he said softly. She lifted her forehead off of his and looked up at him quickly, stunned. _He… what?_

 _You_ _ **cannot**_ _tell me that's a surprise,_ the voice in her head told her incredulously. _Literally_ _ **everyone**_ _who knows you two know that._

But they were words that Jane had given up on ever hearing – from him or from anyone else for that matter – even as they had grown closer. She knew that he trusted her again, but she had simply refused to let herself believe that it could go farther than that. Even that much was far more than she had expected. After all they'd been through, she'd forced herself to give up on the possibility of that ever happening a long time ago.

Biting her lip, her eyes searched his as she felt both pain and joy stabbing through her, piercing her heart more deeply that she had thought possible. At the same time, the sensation flooded everywhere else inside her as well. He'd caught her off guard somehow, and for a second she felt dizzy. She knew that he probably wasn't going to understand her reaction, and she wished desperately that she could explain it to him, but all she could do at that moment was continue to breathe, doing her best to hold herself up. The hand that was over his heart had tightened, curling partway into a fist, but, she realized to her relief, still held in his. He held on now even more tightly than before.

"Jane, I…" He was looking at her worriedly now, and she hated that she couldn't make her mouth work to explain why she was falling apart before his eyes when he'd said something that was so much more than anything she deserved. "Hey," he continued slowly, concern evident in his voice. "It's the truth… and I don't want you to cry. Tell me what's wrong." Both in his eyes and in his voice there was pleading, even.

She hadn't even realized that she was crying until he'd mentioned it, but now she felt the tears on her cheeks, which only made her feel worse. Squeezing her eyes shut, she attempted to force her voice to work before she allowed herself to lose her composure completely, which didn't feel very far away. Slowing down deliberately to take a few deep breaths, she shook her head and tried to speak.

"I thought…" she whispered, "…that after everything… that you could never… that that was too much to hope for…"

 _Almost there,_ she coaxed herself, _just get the rest out._

Somehow, she managed to open her eyes again. "I ruined your life," she said bluntly as she looked into his eyes, blurry as hers were with tears. "So how _could_ you…?" Her face crumpled then, no more words willing to come out. She felt herself retreating back inside her mind, attempting to seal off the offending overwhelming emotions where they were. The first thing that came to mind that she could compare it to was a lockdown at the FBI in which the doors sealed everyone exactly where they were to contain whatever damage had been done and prevent any more. Of course, what she failed to remember in her metaphor was the fact that a lockdown had never contained either of them for very long, as determined as they both were.

To her surprise, not only did his hand not leave her face – it had been there for several minutes now – but his thumb continued to trace a path, swiping across her cheek, seemingly trying to catch each of the tears as they fell.

"Jane, listen to me," he told her slowly. "You did not ruin my life, okay?" She just stared at him, still feeling tears on her cheeks, wondering how he could say that. To her, it seemed impossible that it had been anything else. "You _changed_ my life. That's a big difference. You don't know how grateful to you I am for that, either." He stared into her eyes for a few seconds, and watched as she started shaking her head. His other hand came to rest on her other cheek, holding her face still. It took another long few seconds of staring into his eyes, but she felt her breathing begin to slow just a little.

"Would I prefer that things had been easier for us? _Of course_ ," he continued. "But I wouldn't wish it away – any of it – for anything in the world. Okay? You are worth it."

Still, she was afraid to move or breathe or even nod, for fear that she could crumble. Even worse, she feared that it would all simply vanish.

"I love you," he told her again. "So you're just going to have to get used to hearing it… and _believing_ it. Okay?" He looked at her sternly and yet gently at the same time, and she didn't think she'd ever seen such a look of intense love in all of the short amount of life that she could remember. Nodding very slightly, she felt the muscles in her face finally relax, along with the rest of her body, which almost felt limp with relief.

"Good," he said, leaning forward to kiss her forehead.

"I love you, too," she whispered, still in awe that any of this was really happening. And then he was crushing her into a hug so tight, both arms around her shoulders, it felt as though they had been fused together that way – which was a feeling that she didn't mind at all. Just then, she'd have been perfectly happy never to move again.

She felt Kurt shift, his head moving so that he could look towards the kitchen. "We still have about fifteen minutes until the food is ready," he told her, speaking in a low voice beside her ear. "Let's go and sit down." Nodding gratefully, she managed not to stiffen when his arms loosened around her, knowing that they were going to move towards the couch together.

Slowly, they made their way across the room, one of his arms threaded around her waist for support that she very much needed. On her own, she was fairly sure that she wouldn't have had the energy to even make it to the couch. When they got there, they sat down close together, Kurt pulling her legs over his lap and both his arms around her tightly. Her head fell against his chest, where the steady rhythm of both his heartbeat and his breathing helped to calm her down. Somewhere in the background there was still music playing, but she couldn't focus on it just then, only conscious of the sound.

They sat in silence for several minutes like that, and she felt herself calming down little by little. "Are you still awake?" he whispered tentatively.

Chuckling against him, she nodded. "Yes," she replied.

"Feeling any better?" he asked.

Nodding again, she replied, "Much better."

"Good," he told her. "I don't want you to be sad."

The warmth that flooded her system then was intense and unexpected, and she leaned into him, his arms pulling even tighter around her.

They didn't say another word, just sat there quietly, understanding that that was exactly what they needed and wanted to do at that moment. All too soon, the food was ready, as they were informed by the timer than Kurt had set in the kitchen. It beeped several times, and suddenly Jane felt as though she was falling…

Her eyes opened and she groaned as reality flooded back to her. There she was, lying on her side and pulled tightly into the fetal position in the center of her bed, the covers twisted around her. She sighed sadly, feeling an ache in every one of her muscles, but mostly in her heart. It had been three nights since the last one of these dreams, and she'd almost welcomed the dark, frightening nightmares of her time at the CIA that she'd had in the meantime.

Every night it was something, but these deceptively happy dreams were the worst to wake up from. At least when she woke up from the others, in which she felt like she was going to die, she felt some small sense of relief that it was over. The dreams of Kurt, where they were so _happy_ together, where he _didn't_ hate her, simply left her feeling empty and dead instead. They made it harder and harder to face him at work.

Sighing, she stared straight ahead across the room, trying to catch her breath. There was nothing she could do to make it better, and it was a helpless feeling. If there was one thing Jane hated, it was feeling helpless.

Refusing to think about it any longer, and needing to silence the alarm that had once again disturbed her sleep, she flung the covers off of her and started towards her dresser on the other side of the room.

 _It is what it is_ , she thought. _This is the price I pay._ She knew how the day would go. In a nutshell, she would go into the FBI and deal with the team's hostility, deal with the looks from Kurt that made it clear that like everyone else, he wanted nothing to do with her. And then she would come back to the emptiness of this place, stare at the walls and pretend that she was trying to sleep, until about an hour or two before her alarm went off, she would pass out – if she was lucky – and the cycle would begin again. It would be this way until they stopped Sandstorm, and then… Well, at that point they'd either give her back to the CIA, or turn her loose without a second glance and be relieved to be rid of her.

 _Focus on the mission,_ she reminded herself. _At least you still have that._ What she would do after Sandstorm was dismantled… well, she couldn't worry about that just then.


	3. Speechless

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)**_

She didn't ever remember being in this part of the park before, but Central Park was so big, there were undoubtedly many, many places within it that she hadn't seen. Even now, in winter, it was beautiful to her. Despite the trees that were completely without leaves and the grass that was more brown than green, she couldn't help but smile happily at her surroundings. After all, the sun was shining and the air was crisp but unseasonably warm for this time of year. In other words, it was the perfect day for a walk in the park.

 _Could it also have something to do with the person walking beside you?_ the voice in her head asked, pointing out the _very_ obvious fact that the biggest reason for Jane's sunny outlook was the man from whom she was separated by mere inches, if that much. Looking down at the ground in front of her and feeling herself blush as stray leaves, long since shriveled and fallen, crunched under her feet, she felt a smile a mile wide creep across her face.

 _Of course it's because of him,_ she thought, turning her head only slightly and glancing carefully up to look at him, only to find him watching her.

"What?" he asked with a grin, which only made her smile harder. Her face, she was fairly sure, must be crimson by now.

"Nothing," she shrugged, looking back down but still smiling just as hard.

"That's a pretty big smile for _nothing_ ," he observed innocently, in the tone that told her he wasn't fooled even a little bit by her feigned nonchalance. Glancing back up at him, this time actually turning her head so that she could look directly at him, she noticed that he was pretty smiley himself.

"It kind of matches yours, don't you think?" she asked him, this time managing to hold eye contact with him as she tried her best to pretend she was calm. Her stomach flipped wildly as she once again stared at him in wonder. She would never, ever get used to this. To the fact that she was allowed to feel something that made her so happy.

He tipped his head back and laughed then, looking up at the sky before turning and looking back at her fondly. She was right, she could now see when he looked at her, that his smile was every bit as wide as hers.

"So the question becomes, what do _we_ have to smile so much about?" she asked him, pretending to take the question very seriously, even as she struggled to keep a straight face. Without a word, he reached down and took her hand, squeezing it securely in his before lifting it towards his face. Then, as she watched in amazement, he slowly kissed the back of her hand, even holding it against his lips for a few seconds extra, before letting their still joined hands slowly fall back down between them. When she looked down at their hands, where their fingers were still laced tightly together, all of the progress that she had made in calming the swarm of butterflies that felt like it was flying around in her stomach was lost. Quite the opposite, actually, as the elation she felt was intensified to new heights.

He pulled her to a stop, tugging her back so that she turned around to face him. First she glanced down at their now interlocked hands and then up at his face, grinning widely. She felt giddy, even more so than the grin on her face or any words could have expressed, and she wished that she could describe to him just how very happy she was. Never in a million years had she thought that it could have been like this.

It wasn't a new feeling, of course, but it seemed like it became more and more intense every time she felt it. Could her feelings for him actually get stronger every time? Just when she thought that she couldn't possibly feel more affection for him – couldn't _love_ him more, because somewhere along the way she'd realized that that was what she felt, after all – she found that somehow she did. Apparently there was no cap on her feelings for him, no maximum, even when it felt as though her heart would burst if those feelings got any stronger. It was both a cause of elation and more than a little bit terrifying at the same time.

Now he took her other hand in his as well, clasping both of them in his at their sides. Something in the way he was holding on felt like a promise – that was the best way she could describe it. While she was still preoccupied with the strength flowing into her from his hands, he leaned down to rest his forehead on hers. Her eyes fell closed as she found herself overcome with emotion. It was all just impossibly wonderful. Smiling as she felt him shift, the next thing she knew his lips were pressed against hers, kissing her softly. Tilting her head up towards him for a better angle, she had to will herself to stay upright. She'd heard the expression _weak in the knees_ but hadn't realized that it was actually possible to feel that way… until now.

When they pulled apart a minute later, she opened her eyes and moved back just enough to look up at him to find that the grin on his face matched the one that was slowly spreading across hers.

"I'd say that's something to smile about, wouldn't you?" she replied, biting her lip as she tried but failed to hold back the wave of emotion that lay just below the surface. Her heart was beating so hard and so fast, it seemed impossible that what they had was anything short of extraordinary. _She_ had certainly never felt anything even close to this feeling before. For once, the voice in her head didn't even bother to point out that this lack of a comparison meant nothing, because of the very short duration of her memory. Instead, for once she was able to simply enjoy the feeling. In reality, there was nothing to which this particular brand of euphoria could be compared. After all, it was _love_.

They stared into each other's eyes for long enough to forget that there was a world that existed outside of the tiny little bubble in which the two of them stood, until slowly they began to feel the chill of the winter day. It felt colder because they weren't walking any longer, as even their previous leisurely pace had been helping them stay warm. Letting go of only his left hand, she wrapped her right arm around the middle of him as he did the same around her shoulder, pulling each other close while their other hands remained tightly clasped together. He kissed her forehead, then leaned his cheek against it, and she felt him sigh against her.

"As perfect as this is, we should probably keep walking if we don't want to still be in this spot when we lose all the light," he said softly. Despite the fact that she would have liked nothing better than to stay exactly where they were, she nodded, feeling her forehead brush up and down against his cheek, which was still leaned against her.

She had a quick flash of a memory then, but to a time that she remembered as Jane, not Remi – one of her _own_ memories. It took her back to the one other time that she and Kurt had been to Central Park in a non-work capacity, on a day only slightly warmer than today, when they'd laid on a blue blanket in the grass and looked up at the clouds. Without even realizing it, she glanced up at the sky, remembering the simple ways she had _known_ , even back then. Known what, exactly? Just… _known._

And then, _despite_ what she had known, so very many things had just gone so stunningly, perfectly wrong after that, as their relationship, whatever it had been, their _friendship,_ had descended into some sort of downward spiral from which she had never, ever expected that they could have emerged unscathed. When she considered it, actually, they _weren't_ unscathed. No, they were _plenty_ scathed. But that didn't matter, because they were standing there together.

When she looked back down from the sky and her eyes came to rest on him again, she found that he was watching her, the expression on his face making her wonder if he, too had been thinking of that day just then. Without a word, they turned and walked on, taking turns squeezing each other's hands and bumping their shoulders playfully against each other. It was amazing, she noted, how they could be less than a block from a major road at the edge of the park, and yet the noise of the street was so muted that it allowed her to feel that the outside world was much farther away than it actually was – almost as if they'd entered some sort of magical haven nestled into the middle of the bustling city. She supposed that that was exactly what it had been designed to feel like.

As they came around a bend in the wide sidewalk that ran along the side of a deserted road, she saw that ahead of them there was a large formation of rocks, the slope of which was gentle enough for even younger children to be able to walk up to the top – though there wasn't anyone on them at the moment. Without having to say a word, they headed in that direction, keeping their hands clasped together as they walked carefully up the large, uneven rocks until they reached the top. Standing there, they looked around at the park in winter, the view a little better than it had been from the ground, but far from allowing them to see _everything_. It was silent, the daylight already seeming to fade as the sun had dropped below the buildings that surrounded the park some time before.

Stepping around to the side of her, so that she was now in front of him, he finally let go of her hand so that he could wrap his arms around her waist, holding on tight. Without a second thought, she leaned back against him, sighing with happiness. This day had been too perfect to be real, and she felt like she should say something profound – about this day, about _this…_ whatever it was between them… just _something_ to tell him how happy he made her, even if she couldn't explain any of it.

No, if she was being honest with herself, she knew what it was. She loved him, and it was that simple. That made everything else suddenly fall into line. It was just hard to comprehend, because nothing had ever worked out for them before. On the contrary, it seemed like it had always been quite the opposite – the more they had felt pulled together, in the beginning, the more it had felt as though their lives had tried to pull them apart. For a while, those forces had succeeded. But no more.

 _So what's stopping you from telling him?_ the voice in her head asked curiously.

 _I don't know_ , she replied, anxiety taking hold of her at the thought. _That's… big._

 _It is,_ the voice agreed. _But it's the truth, isn't it?_

 _Yeah,_ she thought, tensing slightly. Almost immediately, she felt his arms tighten around her.

"Hey," he said in a low voice, just beside her ear, "everything okay?"

The park was still and quiet and deserted around them, and it was as though they were the only two people in the world, alone there in the quiet. Shifting slowly, she turned herself partway around in his arms, then turned her head the rest of the way, so that she was looking half over her shoulder at him so that she could look into his eyes. She wasn't quite sure what, but it felt as though she was looking for something.

And then just like that, there it was. She still wasn't sure _what_ it was, exactly, but she found it – in his eyes and in his smile as he looked back at her curiously. Of course, it wasn't _just_ curiosity that she saw there. No, even though it didn't really make any sense, somehow she saw in his face what she felt, and it helped calm her racing thoughts. Now she simply smiled at him, feeling the giddiness returning and flooding her body with happiness, pure and simple.

"I love you," she whispered, then watched his face carefully for his reaction. For a split second, she wondered if she'd made a mistake, if she was about to regret saying those words even more than anything else she had done since crawling out of the duffle bag in Times Square… and heaven knew there were a _lot_ of things that she'd regretted doing since then, and that she probably always would.

Of course, it was a silly thing to worry about, because almost immediately his face transformed into the most brilliant smile she'd ever seen. If there had ever been someone who looked happier, she had never seen them. His lips parted as if he was about to speak, but nothing came out. He simply stood and stared at her, looking happier than she'd ever seen him, and also more shocked.

 _Is he speechless?_ she wondered. In all the time she'd known him, she'd never known him to be speechless.

In slow motion, or maybe it only felt that way because of what she'd just confessed to him, she watched him stare at her in awe, as if trying to process the three words she'd said. As the seconds ticked by, she quickly began to wish that he would say _something,_ because even though he looked absolutely delighted, the silence was making her a little nervous.

His expression slowly changed from happily shocked to simply a slightly delirious smile, and he seemed to finally find his voice. "I love you, too, Jane," he whispered. He stared at her for a few more seconds before adding, "I always have."

And then suddenly, she felt it happening again. Her heart was so full, to the point that she was sure it would burst, and suddenly she had the feeling that she loved him even more than she had just a few seconds before. It was impossible, and yet absolutely true.

A sound escaped her that was something like a laugh, except that it was also slightly a sob, but not the kind that said that she was upset. She was simply and completely overwhelmed with the storm of emotions inside her, and for a few seconds, she was overcome.

He released his arms from her waist and turned her all the way around to face him, stepping even closer to her and bringing both his hands to rest gently but securely on her cheeks, holding them there and looking into her eyes. As his thumbs fanned gently across the skin below her eyes, she stared right back into his eyes, certain that she couldn't have looked away if she had wanted to – which she _didn't_ want to, of course.

She could feel tears forming in the corners of her eyes, despite the fact that this was literally the happiest she had ever been. When one of those tears escaped and began a slow descent down her cheek, Kurt quickly swiped it away with his thumb.

"Hey," he whispered, but nothing else. Their communication was such shorthand by this point that he didn't need to say anything else. She knew exactly what he was telling her with only that one word.

 _I know. It's okay. I'm here. Don't be sad. I've got you. I'm not going to let anything else come between us._

All of these things with only the word, "Hey." For someone who'd once told her than he and Allie hadn't been "the best at communicating," it seemed that the problem in that equation hadn't been _him_. The problem had been, apparently, that he hadn't been with Jane, because with her, he seemed to be doing just fine. Better than fine, in fact.

She smiled the best she could, but she could feel the dam about to burst inside of her, as her emotions prepared to overflow, and tears continued to leak slowly from the corners of her eyes, each of them swiped away by Kurt's gentle thumbs.

"Happy tears, I promise," she replied, so quietly that even in the stillness of the empty park, he only heard her because they were standing so close together. She struggled to breathe normally, to stop the avalanche of tears that she felt was about to happen, despite how adamantly she told herself that this was _not_ something that any sane person would cry over. "I just… I don't know _how_ to be this happy." Despite her best efforts, her voice broke then, but she forced herself to continue. "Happy wasn't something I ever had, now or, uh… _before_ …" She looked into his eyes, and they both knew that she was referring to Remi. "…or even something that I ever thought I deserved. Especially… after everything…" She watched as the creases in his face deepened as he frowned at her words.

"You deserve it more than most people," he told her. "More than anyone else I know."

She was about to argue with him about that, but before she had a chance he leaned forward and kissed her once again, slightly insistently, and for the split second before she lost herself in the kiss, she wondered if this was his version of ending the conversation before she could disagree with him. Knowing him as she did, she wouldn't put it past him, and she certainly wouldn't claim that she didn't like this technique. When they broke apart, she looked up at him once again and no longer felt tears looming, only a blissful feeling of calm, of all being right with the world, and most of all, of loving the man looking back at her so much it took her breath away.

His hands finally slipped from her cheeks and around to the back of her neck, slipping into the space between the collar of her jacket and the neckline of her shirt, stopping where the base of her neck met her shoulders. His fingers moved in small circles over the fabric of her shirt, managing to find and alleviating what little tension may have been left there. Once again, he leaned his forehead down to hers, resting them together and simply leaning into each other, her arms winding around him tightly as they stood there on the top of what was basically a stack of large rocks – in the middle of Manhattan, and yet blissfully alone.

Eventually, his hands left her neck, moving slowly back out from under the collar of her jacket and wound tightly around her shoulders. Not too long after that the wind picked up, making them both shiver slightly.

"We should probably go," she said reluctantly, craning her neck to look up at him but not releasing her arms from where they were wrapped around his midsection. "It's almost dark already." Glancing around, she added, "Where did the day go, anyway?" She was genuinely baffled how time had passed so quickly.

"Do you know the expression, _time flies when you're having fun_?" he asked her, to which she nodded, rolling her eyes only slightly as if to say _Yes,_ _ **of course**_ _I know it_. "Well," he continued, "today didn't just fly… it disappeared."

Again, she felt the flare of happiness, once again stronger than she'd thought possible. Nodding her head slowly, she just looked at him for a few seconds. "It did," she agreed quietly. She wanted to say more, but once again she was overwhelmed. He seemed to understand this, and he looked at her questioningly, waiting for her thoughts to clear. All of a sudden, she had the strangest feeling, as if she was seeing everything that had happened between them – _all of it,_ good and bad – flashing before her eyes all at once, as if her brain was superimposing the images over one another at lightning speed.

She must have had some sort of strange look on her face, because when she came back to reality, he was looking at her curiously. Looking into his eyes, she felt slightly dizzy with happiness.

"Let's go home," he said, at which she arched her eyebrows questioningly.

"Whose home?" she asked him with a teasing smile.

"Whichever you want," he replied, the warmth in his voice making her lean towards him without even realizing it. Tightening his arms around her, he added in a serious voice, "I can drop you off at your place, no problem…" Of course, he _could_ have been serious, and she knew that if that was what she wanted, he would have done it, no questions asked. However, she also knew that _he_ knew that that wasn't what she wanted. At least… not this early, if at all…

Looking up at him and narrowing her eyes as she pretended to scowl at him, she just barely stopped herself from laughing. He leaned down and kissed her again, not feeling at all rushed by the darkness that was falling around them or the chill in the air, despite their agreement that it was time to leave. In fact, neither of them felt the chill at all until they broke apart once more, a minute or so later.

"Wherever you want," he told her sincerely, "You know that… All I know is that we can't stay _here_." Then, changing topic slightly, he added, "Why don't we stop and pick up something to eat, and you can decide then?"

"That sounds like a plan," she replied, realizing for the first time that it had been _many_ hours since they'd eaten last. She'd been so distracted just by being with him that she hadn't even noticed that she was hungry. "Do you have somewhere in mind?"

"I might," he told her with a grin. Finally releasing his arms from around her, he stepped back to look at her for just a second before offering her his hand. Her arms had fallen from around him at the same time his had left her, and while it wasn't the same as being so close to him, she gladly took his hand, squeezing it tightly. They made their way carefully back down the rocks to the more level, less slippery ground, where they rejoined the wide cement path that led toward the park entrance.

It had been a wonderful day, almost too good to be true, she couldn't help but decide.

 _If this is a dream,_ she thought, _please don't let me wake up._

And then, of course, somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind, she heard some sort of strange sound that she couldn't identify but that she instantly knew meant that trouble was coming, and coming fast. The noise level was moderate at first, but within seconds it became deafening. In that instant, the perfect day on which she'd found herself walking through Central Park with Kurt – and all of the perfection that had come with it – simply melted away before her eyes, disappearing from her view as if it had never been there and leaving only blackness in its wake.

 _No!_ she cried desperately in her head, as she felt herself slowly waking up.

She knew what was happening this time, which in some ways made it better, but in other ways made it worse. Once again, the dream had been so acutely real, and she'd been so blissfully happy, only to be ripped out of it by the painful reality that it had been just that – a dream. Even as she now felt herself almost fully awake, she kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut and attempted to block out as many of her senses as possible. Reality was her enemy, she knew, and though it wouldn't do any good, still she attempted to keep it at bay.

Pulling the pillow over her head, she screamed in frustration for a full five seconds into her mattress before throwing the offending pillow across the room, turning onto her side and curling into herself. She wouldn't be going back to sleep, she knew, but she couldn't bring herself to move, either. If she stayed in the tight little ball she had pulled herself into, if she didn't move, didn't think, didn't do _anything,_ maybe she could make herself cease to exist. And maybe then, and, she was fairly sure, _**only**_ then, she might stop feeling the excruciating pain in her chest that always seemed to radiate outward, flooding her entire body after these dreams.

Of course, she _knew_ that it didn't work that way, but after the dream she'd just had it sounded so much easier than facing reality, than facing _him_ , yet again that day at work. However, it wasn't a choice, and she knew it, so after lying on her side for long enough that the ache had dulled to only mildly unbearable, she slowly pushed herself up off the bed. It was still the middle of the night, but she was done sleeping. Walking over to turn off her alarm, the neon numbers of the clock confirmed that it was only 2:49 am. With a sigh, she headed downstairs to make coffee.

It was going to be yet another in a never ending string of very long days, but she would take it. After all, when this was over – when Sandstorm was stopped – who knew what was in store for her. Just now, she had to take things one agonizing day at a time.


	4. Maybe

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)**_

 _A/N: Thank you for sticking with this story so far. I know that the ends of the chapters are a little painful, but if you know my writing, you know the story itself won't end that way. It's building toward something, I promise. Also, I added in a new component at the end starting with this chapter, so maybe that will ease the heartache just a little. In any case, I hope you enjoy this._

He'd told her that where they were going was a surprise, and after that he had refused to tell her anything. She sat beside him in the car, watching him grin like a little boy, and she wanted to be frustrated, because she was dying to know what the big secret was… except that he looked so damn _cute_ … sohappy with himself, and even happier when he turned to look at her. No, she couldn't help but smile at him.

They'd been driving for a little while, and it appeared that they were heading to Long Island. If she didn't know better, she'd say that they were going to the beach… But surely that didn't make sense, not at this time of year. After all, while it wasn't freezing cold today, it certainly wasn't beach weather. Besides, neither of them were dressed for the beach even if it _had_ been the right weather... So she remained confused until the minute he pulled into a deserted public parking lot that was indeed designated as _beach parking_ according to the sign.

Looking at him in confusion, she couldn't stand it anymore. "What are we doing _here_?" she asked, completely baffled.

His grin grew wider, and he appeared beyond pleased that he'd been able to surprise her. "You'll see, in just a minute," he told her. "Come on, we're here."

Shaking her head at him once more, she climbed out of the car slowly, walking around to meet him by the trunk. The sky was a perfect blue, she noticed, looking up. Not a single cloud was in sight. Too bad the temperature was only about half what it needed to be to be beach weather, or this could have been perfect.

 _But you're here,_ she reminded herself. _So clearly there's a reason._

She was brought back to the present by the slam of the trunk in front of her, and she watched as he picked up a backpack and slung it over his shoulder. Once again he grinned at her excitedly, this time stepping close to her – now that the console in the middle of the car was no longer between them, there was nothing stopping him. Threading his arms around her waist, he pulled her closer, her face automatically tilting up towards his and bringing their faces into alignment. When he stopped just before their noses touched, she couldn't help smiling at him – not that she was trying to avoid it.

"You're really not going to tell me what we're doing here?" she asked, just as the wind began whipping her hair around her face. They both smiled at her mock frustration, their proximity, and at her attempts to pull her hair away from her face so that she could actually look at him.

"I'll do better that telling you. I'm going to show you," he told her. "Besides, don't you trust me by now?" he added, pretending to be hurt.

Making a face at his low blow, even though they both knew that he was completely kidding, she pretended to pout for about three seconds, as he just grinned at her. Then, instead of answering, she leaned forward and kissed him, surrendering her tenuous grasp of her short hair, which immediately resumed blowing around her face, the ends also pelting against _his_ skin now that he was closer. It was a strange feeling, tickling their faces, and it made both of them laugh as their lips remained locked together. As strange as it was, it didn't stop them from finishing their kiss, however. They finally gave in and withdrew to look at each other the best they could through Jane's messy locks only after several more minutes. As it tended to be between them, the closer they got to one another, the stronger the pull between them, much like some sort of supercharged magnetic force.

They paused only inches from each other's faces, grinning, as she attempted to memorize this moment. There was something absolutely perfect, _too perfect_ , even, about how such a normal, everyday scene could feel so special… she couldn't have described what she liked so much about it properly if she'd tried. Maybe it was just the fact that after everything she'd been through to get here, she tried to appreciate every moment, every small detail – and especially every detail that had to do with Kurt. After all, happiness was a new concept for her, one that she still wasn't used to, and she found that she was quickly becoming addicted to it... Again, thanks to _him_. While he might disagree, in her head there was no question that he had made it all possible.

"Are you ready for your surprise now?" he asked her softly. They still hadn't moved away from each other and were still standing beside the car. She'd just realized that one major advantage of this deserted beach was that there wasn't a single other person around to interrupt them, something that had seemed to happen constantly as they'd been trying to figure out what was happening between them – for almost as long as they'd known each other, really.

"Almost," she told him, leaning forward quickly to kiss him once again. He must have realized what she was doing at the last second before their lips made contact, because though her eyes were already closed, she felt him smile at her as their lips locked together. Her hands rested on the middle of his back, pulling him closer, and this kiss moved a little slower, lasted a little longer. When she finally stopped for air, she leaned down and pressed her cheek against his chest, listening to his heart hammering loudly and feeling him chuckle slightly, kissing the top of her head.

"Sorry, I got distracted," she mumbled, but her words didn't reach his ears, the wind still blowing hard around them.

"I didn't catch that, Jane," he said near the side her head, several inches above her ear. "It's a little windy up here." She chuckled now, feeling very nicely protected by the fact that he was blocking the wind for her, his arms now wrapped tightly around her shoulders. Lifting her head so that she could look back up at him, she felt his arms loosen only just enough for her to move.

"I said, Sorry, I got distracted… from the surprise," she told him with a grin, arching her eyebrows playfully at him.

"I suppose I can forgive you, though I get the feeling that you're _not_ actually sorry…" he replied with a grin – the same one that she was slowly beginning to see more and more from him. "Now come with me." He let his right arm drop from her shoulders so that they could turn and walk toward the beach, still holding onto each other tightly, his left around her shoulders and her right arm around his waist. She had to remind herself that she was being greedy when inside, she protested the fact that she could only have one arm around him and not both.

 _Easy_ , she told herself, laughing at her own frustration. If it was possible to get enough of this, of _him_ , she wasn't anywhere near this point. Her head was buzzing with giddiness as they walked toward the beach.

When they reached the sand at edge of the parking lot, the difference was immediately apparent. "Normally I'd say it's easier to take off your shoes and socks here," he told her, still holding onto her tightly around her shoulders. "But considering the temperature, that might be a little cold."

"Won't we end up with sand in our shoes?" she asked curiously.

"Maybe," he replied, "but the sand's pretty cold for walking on right now. And besides, we can always dump the sand out of our shoes… but it's up to you. Do whatever you want."

"Well," she replied thoughtfully, "I'll keep them on for now and see how it goes." He nodded, starting forward slowly as she imitated the exaggerated steps he was taking to get through the softest of the sand. "Besides," she added, her eyes still focused on the sand in front of her feet, "I wouldn't want to get cold feet if I don't have to." Grinning at her own joke, she glanced up at him, biting her lip and waiting for his reaction. He just beamed back at her, shaking his head and then kissing her temple, all as they continued to walk forward onto the beach.

"Very clever," he told her, his eyes dancing in amusement. "I wouldn't want you to get cold feet either. Not _now_ …" He looked at her intently, as if he was trying very hard to tell her something. This only made her grin harder, and she looked back down at the sand awkwardly, pretending that she was just trying to walk without ending up with the whole beach inside her shoes – though she _was_ doing that, it wasn't the whole reason she'd looked away, of course. It didn't seem possible for anything to ruin this moment for her. Very simply, she felt herself overflowing with happiness.

As they came to the more tightly packed sand in the middle of the beach, she noticed that walking became easier. "So are you ready for your surprise?" he asked her.

"You mean, there's more? Besides being here with you?" she asked, still grinning. She knew it was cheesy, but she couldn't resist. And besides, it was absolutely the truth. While she never would have thought that she'd enjoy the beach in this weather, she'd just learned something – that it was equally beautiful just then, just in a different way. It wasn't hard to see the parallels from that, but instead of focusing on them, she simply turned towards him, looking into his eyes again. It was so easy to get lost in them…

Once again he was smiling at her, and she had to remind herself to focus, lest she miss what he was saying. He was looking at her tenderly now, his right hand coming up to her cheek, and the backs of his fingertips trailing along it before his hand came to rest on her shoulder, squeezing gently.

"Yes, Jane, there's more," he told her, just loudly enough for her to hear over the wind. She assumed that he was as mesmerized by the moment as she was, because he stared at her for more than a few seconds then, appearing to forget that he'd asked if she was ready for her surprise.

Grinning at how adorable the entire thing was, she glanced out at the waves for the first time. This small break in their eye contact seemed to be all he needed to bring him back to the present, because she felt him shift, his arms falling from around her as he set down the backpack with a chuckle at himself. Unzipping it, he pulled out a large towel made up of tiny flecks of blue and green, and stepped back slightly in an attempt to spread it out on the sand. The wind, however, had other ideas, and the towel began flapping wildly. Laughing and grabbing the other two corners, Jane helped him get it on the ground, then anchored the sides – first by sitting on it themselves, adding the backpack Kurt had been carrying to the end that was being lifted by the wind, as well as several containers that Kurt removed from inside the bag as well.

"This is some serious wind," Jane commented, feeling a little colder than she'd anticipated, as she looked out at the water, and then back at Kurt. They had ended up sitting a little farther apart than she would have preferred when they'd flopped down quickly on the towel to keep it from blowing away. She shivered, pulling her arms tightly across her chest and thinking that she should have brought something warmer to wear.

"Well, I see that as a good thing," he told her, pulling a blue blanket out of his backpack. She'd seen it before, she realized… a long time ago, and she couldn't help but smile at the memory. Then without a word, he moved over on the towel, scooting towards her until their shoulders were touching, then wrapped the blanket around the two of them, pulling her close. "It gives me an excuse to do this," he added.

"I see what you mean," she replied, nodding her head as she turned slowly to smile at him. "Not that you needed an excuse, of course." She couldn't get over how he really did seem to think of everything. She felt warmed inside and out, both by his physical proximity, and by his thoughtfulness. "Just when I didn't think this could get any more perfect," she said, soaking in the moment happily. She leaned down and slightly to the side, so that her forehead was tucked against his neck, then craned her head a little further back so that she could kiss his neck instead, feeling him simultaneously pulling her even closer, his arms and the blanket tightening around her. They were about to lose their balance, she was fairly certain, but at that moment she didn't care.

Sure enough, only a few seconds later, they had toppled over, still wrapped up together, his arms around her, still holding the blanket around her tightly as well. They were both laughing, her head now back against the sand and his face much closer to hers than it had been a few seconds before… _so close_ , she noticed as their laughter died away and they stared into each other's eyes, smiling happily.

For a second she thought that he was going to suggest that they sit up, and she realized that she didn't want to. They were lying half on the towel and half in the sand on a deserted beach in the middle of winter, their limbs wrapped around each other and a blanket around them for good measure… no, there didn't seem to be a good reason for them to sit up, so when he didn't suggest that they should, she was relieved.

 _But now that they were lying here like this…_ She felt herself blushing, slowly growing warmer and warmer, the chill of the wind now a distant memory.

She was certainly surprised at the position in which they'd ended up, but she couldn't say she didn't like it. While she may have been too self-conscious to get herself tangled up with him this way on a beach, deserted or not, on purpose, now that they were there… The feeling in the pit of her stomach was a combination of excitement and nerves as she let herself think about the fact that she was lying here with him, slightly on her side, not quite on her back, with him basically wrapped around her and almost but not quite leaning directly over her, one hand now braced in the sand just beside her face… Catching her breath from the tumble into the sand, she looked up at him slowly, unsure what to expect.

Of course, she realized when their eyes met that she'd had no reason to feel self-conscious, or worried, or anything else besides pure happiness. The look in his eyes as he looked back at her was one so reverent that she felt her eyes grow misty before she'd even identified how she felt – she had never been looked at with so much love, and for a second, it took her breath away. It was _impossible_ , after all, that he loved her that much – that _anyone_ could love her that much. Her? Jane? The architect of so much destruction? Except that no, it wasn't impossible. It wasn't just possible, it was _happening_. She didn't need any more evidence than to look into his eyes to see it.

Just as he always did, he seemed to read the emotion in her eyes, and his expression changed to concern. "You okay?" he asked in a whisper, even though there was no one else as far as either of them could see. It wasn't necessary to whisper, it was simply more intimate that way.

Just like that, her voice was gone and all she could do was nod at him, not breaking eye contact. A wave of overpowering emotion was dangerously close to the surface, and she wasn't convinced that she wasn't about to cry from the intensity between them just then. There was absolutely nothing wrong – on the contrary, everything was _right_ – so why did she feel this way? She didn't understand…

Smiling at her knowingly, he simply leaned forward and kissed her. This time it was even slower than the previous one, almost as if he was moving in slow motion. Jane was surprised when her mind exploded in a burst of full color. There was nothing to compare this to, nothing in her life or her experience that had prepared her for something so intense, and she had to remind herself to breathe.

All too soon, he leaned back, lifting himself up so that his face was once again a few inches above hers, looking down with tenderness and still, a touch of concern. His left arm, the one that braced himself up against the sand, rested a few inches from her face, and his left hand lay just beside her head, close enough that his thumb could stroke her temple.

"Come back here," she told him, bringing her hands up to his cheeks and then tugging him back down towards her, watching his smile grow immediately.

"For you? Always," he whispered, moving back towards her to kiss her once again.

While they didn't end up removing any clothing, they were quite glad for the privacy that the empty beach had afforded them. It was a long while later when they were finally sitting up once again, Kurt's arm around Jane tightly and the blanket still wrapped around them. Her now sandy head was firmly squeezed against his shoulder with no intention of moving anytime soon.

 _This,_ she was sure, _is paradise._

"Oh, I almost forgot," he began with a grin. "Are you hungry?"

She picked up her head and looked at him in surprise. "You brought food, too?" she asked, glancing down at the containers that she had completely forgotten that she'd seem when they'd been trying to weigh down the towel when they'd arrived.

Nodding, he replied, "Of course. The _idea_ was that it was a picnic."

She looked at him thoughtfully for a minute before replying. "Well, I have to tell you that this has already been better than any picnic _I've_ ever been to." Arching her eyebrows suggestively, she couldn't help but grin.

"You've been to a few picnics, then?" he replied, trying to keep a straight face.

"Well… at least one," she said, rolling her eyes. They'd had a picnic in Central park a long time ago, sitting on the same blanket that was now pulled tightly around them.

"And this one's better?" he asked, feigning innocent curiosity.

"I mean, that one was a lot of fun," she began carefully. "I just didn't know…" Pausing to find the right words, she looked at him and smiled, tilting her face slightly to one side. "I guess I never thought anything this good could happen to me," she said, her face now suddenly serious.

"Are we still talking about the picnic?" he asked curiously, his voice softer and less playful than it had been a minute before.

"Among other things," she replied, smiling slightly once again. Then, with a devilish grin, she added, "I mean, I haven't had any of the food yet, so I guess it could still go either way…"

His jaw dropped open in mock indignation, and he pretended to be offended. "You doubt my skills?" he asked, doing a better job of keeping a straight face than she did. While they could keep up a steady stream of teasing banter, this more playful behavior was _so_ very out of character for him, and she sometimes wondered where in the world it came from.

Suddenly feeling the need to face him, she shifted, turning around and pulling herself up onto her knees, moving around to the front of him as he obligingly uncrossed his legs so that she could scoot as far forward as possible and kneel directly in front of him, her hands now on his shoulders. Adjusting her position so that she was on the same eye level he was, she looked directly into his eyes and stopped, suddenly mesmerized, and almost forgetting what she'd wanted to say.

Finally coming out of her trance, she replied quietly, "There isn't a single thing about you that I doubt." She didn't break eye contact, but instead continued to hold it intensely. Feeling his arms tighten around her waist, she leaned herself forward, and in seconds they were once again lying half on and half off of the towel. This time it was Kurt who had the back of his head in the sand, Jane lying squarely on top of him.

Blushing slightly, her smile now went from serious to embarrassed. "Anything else you'd like to say?" he asked in amusement. He chuckled then, and she joined him, unable to keep a straight face. He was simply too much.

"I love you," she said without thinking, the words simply tumbling out.

Looking up at her in surprise, a grin spread across his face. "I love you, too," he whispered, pushing messy strands of windblown hair behind her ears, but to no avail, thanks to the fact that she was leaning over him and gravity and the wind were working against them.

She had almost lowered her face down to his when he asked, "Does this mean you're not hungry?" to which she had to stop and laugh.

"We'll eat later," she promised, her lips only a fraction of an inch away from his, "right now we're busy kissing."

"I can live with that," he replied, even as the kissing in question had already started, which only made her smile even more.

This man.

 _This. Man._

He was just…

 _ **Gone.**_

Her eyes popped open then, without warning, and once again she was back in her bedroom, lying on her back and staring up at the white ceiling. Her heart ached, maybe more than ever before, and she couldn't help but wonder if these dreams were ever going to stop.

 _Please, make them stop_ , she whispered softly, out loud to no one in particular, as she suddenly felt tears leaking from her eyes. She continued to stare at the ceiling, willing herself to get a grip, and push the dream away, to forget... but she found that she could do none of these things. Not this time. Instead, she remained firmly in its clutches. Closing her eyes against the images did no good, of course, since they were inside her head. On the contrary, it only made them stronger and more vivid.

Finally, with great effort and the knowledge that she had no other choice, she forced herself to sit up on the edge of the bed, to stand up and put one foot in front of the other. To turn off her alarm, still hours from going off, to take a shower and get dressed, to go downstairs and make coffee. It was perhaps the only consumable product in her safe house, since she didn't really usually bother with food. Most of the time she wasn't hungry anyway, and she'd have something at work at one point or another. It wasn't healthy, she knew, but she didn't care. She consumed enough to keep going, to stay strong enough to fight Sandstorm. That was what they needed her for, anyway. Beyond that, she didn't matter to them, so she had a hard time feeling like she mattered at all. Not beyond her one objective.

 _You don't really believe that,_ the voice in her head said incredulously.

 _Why wouldn't I?_ she replied. _It's the truth._

 _Is it?_ the voice countered, but left it there. For once, the voice didn't argue.

Yes, that was the truth. There was no doubt in her mind.

That is, until later that day. She'd come back to the FBI after failing Shepherd's loyalty test, and Kurt had met her at the elevator door, asking her in a whisper if she was alright. She was surprised and confused, because if she didn't know better, she would have thought that he'd looked… _worried_.

Minutes later, as she'd told them what had happened with Jeffrey Kantor, Nas and Kurt had listened, staring at her intensely. Nas' face had been her regular, impossibly stone faced stare, until she'd surprised the other two by telling Jane that she _should have_ shot Jeffrey Kantor – for the good of the mission.

Kurt was visibly surprised, and had finally recovered his voice as Nas rallied on and on. "She is _not_ a killer," he insisted. Maybe it shouldn't have surprised her as much as it did, and maybe she shouldn't have allowed his statement to give her so much hope… but she couldn't help it.

When Patterson came in to announce that they knew where the next bomb was going to go off, Kurt and Nas began arguing about whether Jane was in a mindset to be able to go into the field – right in front of her, once again.

"She's not fit to be out in the field right now," he spat. He clearly expected the matter to be closed.

 _Is he… concerned?_ Jane wondered for a second. _No, he's just worried that I'll be a liability to the mission,_ she realized. That made a lot more sense, after all.

"She can't just sit one out! Things have to appear business as usual." Nas, ever the voice of reason, had made an excellent point. No matter whether she was fit for duty or not, if they didn't want to arouse Sandstorm's suspicion, she didn't have a choice but to go out with the team. Not that she had any objection. It was Kurt who would have to get past the issue and his objections, valid as they might be.

Standing and listened to them disagree about whether to send her with the team felt surreal. They were deciding her fate as though she wasn't even there, arguing about her as if she was an expensive piece of machinery – or at least that was how it felt. She supposed that in a lot of ways, to them, she _wasn't_ there. She was a tool, a thing, a weapon that they would decide how to best use to their advantage. And yet, Kurt had just come down squarely on her side a few seconds before. Actually, ever since she'd stepped out of the elevator, she'd felt something different about the way he was looking at her.

Whatever he was thinking, if there was one thing she hated, it was being perceived as weak. "I can do this," Jane interjected, adding, "Kurt, I'm fine."

He seemed to consider this for a moment, the wheels in his head turning. When he had said that she _wasn't fit to be in the field,_ she had cringed.

 _Does he really think I'm not capable?_ she wondered.

 _Or, he could be_ _ **worried**_ _about you,_ the voice in her head suggested.

 _Kurt? Worried about_ _ **me**_ _?_ she replied silently. _Why would he bother worrying about me, after everything I've done?_

Before the voice in her head could come up with an answer, Kurt had apparently decided that their need for her in the field outweighed whatever his real objection to her coming along might be.

"Let's move," he said curtly.

 _See?_ Jane told her subconscious. _I'm a means to an end._

Despite a change in his demeanor towards her, and the way he'd stood up to Nas, she still truly believed that that was all she was. It would have been ridiculous to think otherwise, after all. Still, there had been a tiny spark of _something_ in his eye, and between that and the voice in her head, she couldn't help but wonder.

 _Was there_ anything else left to her, besides being a tool they would use to defeat Sandstorm? Clearly, she would never be as important to him as she had once been, when she had "been" Taylor, but… in the back of her mind, hope remained. Hope and doubt, sitting hand in hand and waiting to see how everything played out.

 _Maybe_ , that spark of hope told her. And maybe it was just because of how desperately she _wanted_ to believe it, or maybe those dreams – the happy ones, the ones that were more painful than her dreams of CIA torture, in a way – were beginning to affect her brain… whatever it was, despite her better judgement, something inside her refused to give up completely, despite the fact that she knew it was hopeless.

 _You'll only end up disappointed,_ she told herself as she went through the motions of getting ready to go out into the field with the team.

 _Maybe,_ the voice agreed. _Or maybe not_.

 _I don't deserve any better than what I have now_ , she reminded herself. _I did this to myself. All of it._

 _Do you_ _ **really**_ _believe that?_ the voice in her head asked.

 _I don't have a choice,_ she insisted firmly. _It's the truth._

 _If you say so,_ the voice agreed placatingly.

Then, drifting across time and space, she heard a whisper.

 _There's always a way out._

With a sigh, she allowed herself to remember what little she could about that particular memory. It was Roman, she now knew. From her "training," when she'd been Remi. The training that had helped her escape from the black site. She had watched and waited, and she had done the impossible, and escaped from CIA custody, only to end up back here, maybe more in purgatory than in hell, but not in a good place nonetheless. But even so, that kind of knowledge – of how to resist torture – none of that was going to help her this time.

 _Oh no?_ asked the voice curiously. _How can you be sure?_

 _It's not the same,_ she wanted to scream in frustration. _It's not even_ _ **close**_ _to the same. No one is physically holding me back. There's nothing to escape_ _ **from**_ _. I could walk out of here… disappear… if I really wanted to._

 _If you say so,_ the voice replied, once again frustratingly calmly. _So… what's stopping you?_

And then once again, as if to tease her, the memory came again.

 _There's always a way out._

She sighed defeatedly, tired of fighting with her own mind. There were more than enough places to focus her energy on fighting without turning on herself, after all. And besides, how could she _really_ say for sure that that voice didn't know something, somehow, that she didn't?

 _Maybe,_ she allowed as the team got ready to move out. _But a way out, and then what?_

 _Focus on the mission,_ she reminded herself. _Think about the rest of it later._ And because she didn't _want_ to consider the "what ifs" just then, she gladly did just that, focusing on Kurt's stern expression as the team moved out.


	5. Don't Go

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)**_

 _A/N: Thanks to **Ishd**_ _for the inspiration for this chapter's different POV (though others suggested it after that as well), and thanks to everyone for reading! They're getting there... slowly..._

Kurt stared at the paperwork in front of him on his desk, reading the words for at least third time in a row without having retained a single one of them. Reaching up to his face, he scrubbed his hand tiredly across his eyes and then continued down to his chin. This was the day that seemed like it was never going to end – not that that distinguished it from most of the others, really. Too little sleep and too much stress had a way of making all the days blur together that way, and Sandstorm had a way of making it all feel like they were never, ever going to stop being a step behind – if not more than one. The thing that kept him going was that there was no other choice.

Deciding that it was time to finally call it a night, considering that he was accomplishing absolutely nothing by being there when he was this exhausted, he stood up and stretched, cleared his desk and checked that his file cabinet was locked, then walked slowly to the door of his office. Leaving the space behind the glass wall that was his office and walking across the bullpen area, he couldn't help but notice how completely silent it was. It was almost as though the building had been evacuated – which, of course, it hadn't. It was just the middle of the night. Still, he had often been at work both very early and very late, but it had never _felt_ so… empty.

 _Of course it's empty,_ he told himself. _It's the middle of the night. Every single agent and employee in this whole building, probably, had more sense than you and went home at some point – with only the possible exception of the few people who work overnight shifts._

But it wasn't that, exactly. Yes, it was empty because there was no one there. But it felt empty in a different way, too.

 _The building feels empty, or you do?_ the voice in his head asked before he had a chance to reign in his thoughts. He scowled outwardly, even though the thought had come from inside his head. He wasn't going to dignify the question with an answer, even though he knew that his reaction was probably enough of an answer by itself.

Stabbing angrily at the button that called the elevator, he waited impatiently, hearing the mechanisms of the machine grind as the elevator moved to his floor at a snail's pace. When it finally _ding_ ed, he was surprised to notice that his eyes had closed while he'd waited. The noise snapped him back to attention, his eyes springing open as the doors slowly parted to reveal… the same empty elevator as usual. He was surprised to find that he felt an unfamiliar jolt of disappointment.

 _What were you expecting, Weller?_ he asked himself. _Of course it's empty. It's the middle of the damn night._ Shaking his head in annoyance, he stepped in and pushed the button for the locker room level, attempting to keep his eyes open long enough not to miss it.

 _You need to wake the hell up,_ he told himself. _How do you plan to make it home like this?_ That was a pretty good question, wasn't it? He tried to think of something to focus on that would keep his attention, that would help him stay awake for the drive home. He ran through his most recent conversations with Reade, Zapata and Patterson about work. He thought with slight annoyance about the power struggle between himself and Nas, feeling his eyes narrow at the idea of her. Finally, his thoughts settled on the only other person with whom he worked closely, who hadn't yet paraded through his mind.

 _Jane._

He felt him fists tightening involuntarily, all of his muscles contracting despite how very exhausted he was. He was just so _tired_ of thinking about her. He felt like he'd done nothing _but_ think about her since the day her case began.

About how she'd betrayed him.

About how she'd lied to him.

About how he hated her.

But while that was more than enough, it wasn't all.

He also thought about how she'd been tortured by the CIA _because of him_. First, because of his action – not least of all arresting her – and second, because of his inaction – the fact that the CIA had taken her and he hadn't done anything to stop it. He could try to justify either of those, but it didn't change anything. It had been because of him.

He thought about how she'd told him to shoot her to sell her story to Sandstorm – even though it had been Zapata who'd done it, in the end. Jane had known exactly how it was going to feel, having been shot before, and that it was dangerous. After all, bullet wounds could lead to dangerous complications. Looking back now, he knew that she'd shouted Mayfair's last words at him the way she had _not_ simply to make him angry – though they had had that effect – but to make him angry enough so that he wouldn't feel as conflicted about shooting her. She'd known that she needed him to do it in order to sell her story of being held by Cade to Sandstorm, and that he would have trouble doing it, angry though he might be.

He thought about how she'd agreed to be a mole inside Sandstorm – _not_ that they'd given her any choice whatsoever – and ever since then, had showed no concern for her own well-being, as if she had some sort of death wish. As if bringing down the organization was so much more important than whether or not she was alright…

At first, he'd felt that way, too. Maybe objectively, it was true. She was one person, after all, and Sandstorm was bent on doing something that would cause millions of people to suffer. But as time went on and they began working together again little by little out of necessity, they were slowly learning to trust each other again. As time went on, he was less and less able to stomach the thought of her sacrificing herself for the cause. There had to be a way that they could bring down Sandstorm that did not involve losing Jane. Sure, they had plenty of baggage left between them, but he didn't want her to _die_. Actually, the thought of something happening to her left him feeling panicked and desperate, much to his annoyance.

He thought about how conflicted he'd been when they couldn't reach her because Roman had picked her up without warning, and how Nas had coldly told him that he just had to accept this as the way things would be. _The way things would be?_ Nas might be okay with having no idea if Jane was alive or dead until she managed to check in – if, indeed, she wasn't dead after all – but he was decidedly _not_.

He thought about what it all meant – that he could be so angry with her, and yet be so rattled when she failed to check in? How the hell was it even _possible_ to be angry with someone and simultaneously so concerned for their wellbeing? How could he want nothing to do with her and yet at the same time not want to let her out of his sight?

Yes, while he may indeed have been tired of thinking about her, it would be more than enough to keep him awake long enough to get home, that was for sure. More than likely, now that he'd started, thoughts of Jane would keep him up long after he wanted to let himself go to sleep, as well. That seemed to be his curse when it came to Jane. Just like when he'd first met her, his thoughts had never been willing to obey him – not where Jane was concerned.

Stepping off the elevator and walking the short distance to the locker room, he moved slowly down the aisle of identical lockers, stopping in front of his own. This room could be an echo chamber, amplifying every tiny noise, but like the bullpen, just then it was eerily silent. It was _so_ alarmingly quiet that instead of opening his locker, he did a quick perimeter sweep, glancing up and down the rows until he'd assured himself that there was nothing amiss there.

 _You're just paranoid,_ he told himself. _That's it. Paranoid and fucking tired._

Shaking his head wearily at himself, he opened his locker, staring inside blankly for several seconds without remembering what he was doing there in the first place or what he was looking for, before remembering, then reaching inside for his jacket. Really, he was going to have to do a better job taking care of himself, because he was so tired just then, he was slightly delirious.

 _Right, because that's so easy,_ he thought. _Just sleep more. No problem. It's not as though the fate of the world hangs in the balance or anything… except that wait… oh shit, yes, it does…_

 _Get a grip, Weller,_ he told himself in annoyance, closing his locker. For some reason, when he swung the door closed he was actually surprised not to find anyone else standing there in the space where the locker door had been.

 _And you were expecting… who?_ the voice in his head asked sarcastically. _You thought maybe Shepherd would just appear and turn herself in?_

 _When the voice in your head is mocking you, you knew you're being ridiculous_ , Kurt thought to himself and cringed. Then, rather defensively, he added, _Of course I didn't think Shepherd was going to appear there,_ he growled inwardly.

 _Well who then?_ the voice continued, to his dismay. _One of the team, perhaps? Patterson? Reade? Zapata? They're good for comic relief. Pellington? Right, that would be fun. Weitz? You haven't seen him for a while. Rich Dotcom? He's always good for frustration. OH! I've got it. Jane. You were hoping that Jane would be there?_

The tirade finally stopped, and he felt every muscle in his face contract. _Of course not_ , he growled in his head, turning and stomping out of the locker room, back toward the elevator. He waited impatiently, as if the arrival of the elevator would do any good to help him get away from the voice in his head, working hard to ignore it in the meantime.

 _That one struck a nerve, huh?_ the voice asked.

Kurt was getting angrier and angrier by the minute. He was too tired for this bullshit. The fact that the annoyance was coming from _inside his own head_ was only making matters worse, since he couldn't leave it behind, or, as he increasingly wanted to do, punch it in the face. Yes, just then he really, really wanted to punch someone in the face. It had been a long time since he'd been this angry.

 _Well, no, not as long as you think,_ the voice reminded him. _It's only been since the night when you found out about Taylor and arrested J—_

Feeling his blood begin to boil at merely the thought of that night, he knew that he needed to change the direction of his thoughts while he still had some semblance of control of himself.

 _Easy, Weller,_ he thought warningly. _Look on the bright side. At least you know you're not going to fall asleep on the way home._ In fact, it now seemed doubtful that he was going to fall asleep at all. This was just a whole new problem, and he rolled his eyes in frustration.

Driving home, he clenched the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white almost immediately. The traffic was light, since it was late, and this wasn't the part of the city that was usually busy at this time of night. However, every time he stopped at a traffic light he felt his frustration grow. Finally, mercifully, he made it home, finding a parking spot in front of his building for the first time in months. After he turned the key in the ignition and the engine stopped, he sat in the quiet for several seconds, hearing the lack of sound seemed to boom in his ears. Or maybe that was his thoughts that were making so much noise. Whatever it was, he only wished that he could turn down the volume.

 _You're too fucking tired to be sitting here thinking, idiot,_ he thought. _Get the hell out of the car and go upstairs._

Finally seeing the wisdom of the slightly abusive advice he was trying to give himself, he heaved himself out of the car, clicking the lock button on the keyfab multiples times to be sure that it was locked. Somehow he made it upstairs, though he wasn't sure exactly how, because suddenly he was standing in front of his door, staring at the number 11 and realizing that he needed to take his keys out of his pocket if he wanted to be able to actually go _into_ his apartment.

After fumbling with his keys, he swung the door open tiredly. Once again, just like he had in the elevator and the locker room, he had a momentary feeling of surprise when he found the room empty.

 _And you were expecting… a welcoming committee?_ the voice in his head asked curiously.

Stepping inside absently, he almost forgot to close the door behind him. He did, however, and when he turned around to look out through the window where his balcony overlooked the city and the Brooklyn Bridge, he was surprised to see that it was pouring rain.

 _That's weird,_ he thought. _It wasn't raining when I came inside a minute ago…_

But it wasn't the first time the weather hand changed suddenly, and he didn't give it another thought. He was just glad he'd avoided the rain. _Getting soaked would just have made this day even better_ , he thought sarcastically.

Stumbling to the bathroom, he brushed his teeth and then walked slowly to the bedroom, where he simply dropped his clothes in a heap on the floor, climbing into bed in his boxers. There was no one else here, after all, and he certainly didn't have the energy to do anything else but fall over at that point. It had been the last in a series of long ass days, and it was all finally catching up with him.

Despite how certain that he'd been that he would never fall asleep because he'd gotten himself so worked up thinking about Jane, he actually had no problem nodding off, and he was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

He had no idea how long he'd been asleep, since he had no memory of what time he'd gotten home, but it couldn't have been more than a few hours later when something jolted him awake. Sitting up straight in bed, he listened in the dark, waiting to see if whatever he swore he'd just heard would come again. Ten seconds later, a loud, slow clap of thunder rumbled across the sky. Sinking back into the pillow, he lay on his back and tried to catch his breath.

 _Why the hell am I out of breath?_ he wondered. _What kind of fucked up dream was I having?_

Expecting to go back to sleep, he closed his eyes, but found that now that he wasn't completely drained, his mind refused to shut off. Instead, it worked in circles, going over and over all the things that had happened the previous day, and when he'd been over everything what felt like an infinite number of times, he started in on the thoughts about Jane that he'd been having earlier. Now fairly certain that he wasn't going to fall back to sleep in the near future, he sat up in bed, turning and swinging his feet onto the floor and then resting his head in his hands.

 _I'm too tired for this,_ he thought in annoyance.

But his mind continued to spin, and suddenly he just needed to move. Standing up, he walked around the bed to his dresser to find sweatpants and a t-shirt, pulling them on and then padding groggily out to the living room. He had a faint thought about a drink of water, but that thought evaporated when he glanced out at his balcony.

He just stood there and gaped, dumbfounded.

 _What's going on?_

The reason he was so shocked was because there was someone standing on his balcony, in the pouring rain.

No, not someone.

 _Jane._

"What the hell?" he asked no one in particular, out loud and completely confused. It wasn't possible. How would she have gotten into his apartment? Because he was pretty sure she wouldn't have scaled the building just to stand on his balcony… The next question, of course, was… _WHY?_ What would possibly possess her to be here? And if she _was_ here and had somehow let herself in… then why was she standing in the rain?

His head hurt from trying to figure any of this out. Shrugging and admitting defeat to his complete and utter confusion, he walked slowly toward the patio doors, stopping just inside the glass. Now that he was closer, there was no doubt. It was definitely Jane. After all, there weren't exactly a lot of people who looked like her.

For almost a full minute, he just stood and watched as the pouring rain run off of her, dripping from her hair, her clothes… everywhere. She was wearing the same kind of outfit she usually wore. Dark colored pants, boots, several tank tops layered over each other. Judging from how wet she was, she'd probably been there for a while. Then again, it was raining so hard, it would likely only take a few minutes before anyone outside would have been just that soaked.

Finally coming out of his trance, he stepped forward and slid the glass door open. When she didn't move a muscle, not even a flinch, at the sound of the door, he just stood and watched her for another few seconds.

 _Really, what's going on here?_ he wondered, completely baffled.

"Jane?" he said, stepping into the doorway but stopping there, several feet behind her. He wasn't exactly excited about going outside and getting soaking wet. At the same time, the fact that Jane was standing out there concerned him for many reasons. As usual, his concern for Jane made him forget his other concerns.

She didn't react when he called her name, so he tried again, louder this time. "Jane… What's going on?" he asked, trying to be as loud as possible to compete with the steady drumming of the rain. Once again, she made not one single indication that she'd heard him.

Sighing in frustration, he stepped out of the doorway, sliding the door closed behind him out of habit before stepping toward the railing, into the driving rain. Now he stood beside her as she leaned against the railing, staring out into the night.

"Jane?" he said loudly once again, no longer sure how loud he was going to have to be to compete with the sound of the rain and get her attention. Finally, very slowly, she turned to look at him. Before her head finished turning, he was already soaked. However, he had stopped registering the feeling of the rain on his skin. He was watching Jane carefully, and as she turned her green eyes towards him then, any thought of the fact that it was raining at all disappeared from his consciousness.

Here was Jane, standing next to him on his balcony in the middle of a rainstorm in the middle of the night. That was _all_ he was conscious of.

 _But why?_ Why was any of this happening?

"Jane, come inside," he pleaded, now that he seemed to finally have her attention. That was as good a place to start as any, almost like a peace offering. There was a trace of a sad smile on her face, and she slowly nodded in agreement.

"Okay," she replied softly.

Once inside, of course, they were both dripping wet, and he saw her immediately begin to shiver. "Hang on, let me get some towels," told her, moving quickly to the closet in the bathroom and then back to where she still stood by the door, water dripping off of her. Dropping his own towel on the floor, he opened the other one and held it out behind her, bringing it down around her so that it covered her head, bringing the two sides together under her chin, where she took it from him, giving him a faint, sad smile.

"Thanks," she whispered, just watching him intently.

He then picked up the other towel and began drying himself off. He needed to find something dry that she could put on, at least while her clothes dried out, because what she had on was completely soaked.

"I'm going to get you something dry to wear. I'll be right back," he told her, to which she just nodded, still watching him carefully. He could still feel her eyes on his back as he turned around and walked back to his bedroom, taking out a clean t-shirt and, for lack of anything else even resembling pants that would fit her, since she was so much smaller than he was, a pair of boxers along with a safety pin that sat on top of his dresser, so that she could tighten them as necessary.

Back out in the living room, he handed her the items, pointing out the safety pin. She nodded, once again whispering a quiet, "Thanks," and heading for the bathroom without another word.

While Jane was in the bathroom, he went back to his bedroom and changed into a dry shirt and sweatpants once again, then taking his wet things to the small dryer tucked into a closet above the washing machine off the main room of the apartment. A few minutes later, the bathroom door opened slowly and Jane appeared, wearing the t-shirt and boxers that he'd given her, looking sheepish and holding a pile of her wet clothes, her boots in her left hand. As she set them down by the front door, he walked across the room in her direction.

"Let's put that stuff in the dryer, okay?" he asked. She just nodded, following him to the machine and then, when he stopped and put his hands out in front of him, handing over her wet things. He put into the dryer with his, closed the door, and started the cycle. For a second he wondered why it gave him such a strangely calm feeling that their clothes were in the dryer together, before pushing the thought out of his mind. No, he had far more important things to worry about. Like, for instance, now that neither of them were soaking wet, what the hell was going on?

"Come and sit down," he said, indicating the couch, and he began walking towards it as well. After a few steps in that direction, he noticed that she wasn't following him, and he looked back in her direction. There she stood, exactly where he'd left her, just watching him. With a sigh, he walked back to her, stopping so close to her that it even surprised him. He hadn't been this close to her in what felt like a very long time.

"Jane, what's wrong? And… what's going on?" he asked her, completely baffled. He was fairly sure that it wasn't only because he was so tired that none of this made sense.

She looked back up at him as if she was trying to figure out the answers to exactly those same questions. "I don't know," she replied. "Why am I here?"

"Why are you…? _What?_ Jane, how did you…?" his sentences were becoming less and less coherent as the world around him began making less and less sense. She was asking _him_ what she was doing here? But how the hell would he know? How would that be something that he…?

 _Wait,_ he thought, realization finally dawning on him. _Is this all a_ _ **dream**_ _?_ If it was, it would explain a lot, such as Jane suddenly appearing on his balcony. But that only led to more questions, because if this _was_ a dream, why in the world was he dreaming about her?

 _Because you were thinking about her when you went to sleep, maybe? Or is it maybe because of how much of your waking time you spend thinking about her on a regular basis? Or_ _ **maybe**_ _because—_

He cut off the voice in his head before it could go any farther, slightly nervous about what it might propose next.

Still in shock at the realization that this wasn't actually happening to him, he saw himself looking down at Jane, still standing so close in front of him, watching him closely. "Is it true?" he asked her. "Am I dreaming?"

Her expression changed then, and she smiled,smiled _sincerely_ at him, for the first time… Not just the first time that night, but the first time in a _very long time_ , actually. They'd been so at odds at work for what felt like forever, both of them angry with each other and unwilling, or unable, to let go of their anger at the other. Even knowing that this was a dream, when she smiled at him, he couldn't help but feel it tug at his insides, a sense of calm slowly spreading through him. He'd forgotten the effect that she used to have on him, before everything had blown up in their faces… it had been so long ago, or at least, it _felt like_ so long ago.

She nodded slightly, tilting her head to one side, still looking up at him. "That's why I was asking _you_ why I'm here," she replied. "After all, it's your dream. I'm surprised to be in it."

It was the first sane, calm, conversation that he'd had with Jane in ages. Here, standing closer to her than he'd even let himself think about being since before he'd arrested her, before the CIA had taken her, before Nas had shown up and blown their minds with the fact that _the NSA had known what was going on and had done nothing to help them_ … He'd forced himself to forget what it was like to stand this close to her, and now he remembered _why_. Thinking about her at all had made him angry for so long, that it had been easy to forget the soothing effect that she used to have on him. Now, all of a sudden, he felt it again.

 _I've missed this feeling,_ he realized.

He had no answer for her about why she was in his dream. Standing there looking at her, watching her look back at him with those eyes that had always seemed to see right into him… it was strange, but at the same time it was familiar. Again, he couldn't help but think how very much he had _missed_ this feeling – the calm that he felt when he was with Jane. Or at least, that he _had_ felt with her, before…

 _Don't act all innocent,_ the voice in his head asserted. _You have your fair share of things to feel guilty about. You_ _ **arrested**_ _her for God's sake. You're the reason she got sent to the CIA to be tortured._

The anxious feeling in the pit of his stomach began churning, and he tried to focus on her again. Those green eyes… _her eyes_ … they were focused on his with a startling intensity, not angry or judgmental, simply staring at him as if they could see inside him. He tried to focus on her, but he found it harder and harder.

The dream was fading, he could already feel it. There was a noise somewhere in the distance that seemed to be calling him back from this place. _Probably my alarm clock,_ he reasoned. However, even knowing this, he fought to continue looking into Jane's eyes.

"Don't go," he told her, suddenly feeling panicked. He didn't know what made him say it, nor did he know what made him do what he did next. Reaching up without a second thought, he put his arms around her, holding on tight. He felt her breathing evenly, calmly, and he tried to absorb the calm from her.

 _I know that this is just a dream,_ he thought, _but don't let it end. Not yet._

However, he felt a stronger and stronger pull away from her, and the tighter he tried to hold onto her, the less his grip seemed to be doing any good. His frustration level rose quickly, until all of a sudden, there was nothing left to hold onto. She was just… _gone_.

Then he was lying on his back, his head against the familiar pillow in his bed, and his eyes were blinking open to the sound of his alarm clock. Even though he'd known inside of his dream that it had been a dream, it didn't prepare him for the reality of waking up. There was an ache in his chest that he hadn't felt for what seemed like a long time, but he recognized it. It originated in his heart, and he knew the cause.

 _Jane_.

But how much of that had been a dream, and how much of it had been reality? He tried to remember the last thing that he was sure was real, but at that moment his mind failed him. It didn't matter, anyway, really. Nothing that he'd just seen that he'd _wanted_ to be real had been.

He sighed heavily as he pushed himself out of bed. This was going to be a long day.

X

And indeed, it _was_ a long and frustrating day, just like all the others. They ended up going undercover as guests at a black tie gala at a museum. There were certain elements of this mission that reminded him a little too much of the first day they'd met Rich Dotcom, only a few days after Jane had appeared in Times Square, when they'd spent the afternoon together pretending to be husband and wife. It was a good thing that that wasn't their cover this time, he supposed, because pulling it off convincingly may have been… _difficult_ seemed like the right word for it.

 _But don't try to say you wouldn't have liked it just a little bit,_ the voice in his head said slyly.

In the locker room when they were getting ready, he'd walked up to the sink area to find that her dress wasn't quite zipped up in the back, and he offered to help her. It was as though they didn't know how to interact with each other anymore, it felt so painfully awkward. After the dream he'd had the night before, things only felt more confused. He didn't want it to be so difficult, and yet, he didn't remember how to relate to her any other way.

He had the box of inner ear coms in his hand, which she mistook for a box containing wedding rings, and she asked if they were playing a married couple again. He heard his own voice as he told her no, showing her the coms and telling her what they were, and he couldn't help but think that he sounded unnecessarily gruff. It was as though all day he'd been compensating for his dream by being just a little extra standoffish with her, despite the fact that he wanted to be just the opposite. His brain was a confusing place just then.

The team split up and searched the gala. At one point, Jane was talking to the dark haired man with the Australian accent who'd given the fundraising speech, and Weller swore that she was flirting with him.

 _And so what if she is?_ the voice in his head asked. _You don't even want to talk to her, and you definitely don't want anything to do with her that way. You're going to stop her from flirting with people now? Just to be a bigger asshole to her, or what?_

 _We're here to work,_ he thought defensively. _What she does on her own time is her business._

 _Right, that's exactly the problem,_ the voice told him sarcastically. _And you're definitely not jealous._

When he overheard Jane refer to him as her brother after he'd interrupted their conversation, he couldn't explain why it offended him so much. There was simply going to be no winning in this situation, he now saw.

 _Well, again, you didn't want her… but that doesn't mean no one else will,_ the voice reminded him. _She is gorgeous, after all…_

For some reason, he flashed to the image of the tattoo of his name in the middle of her back. The voice was there again with a response, of course.

 _That tattoo brought her to you once,_ it told him helpfully. _It doesn't reserve her for you for all time, until you decide to stop sulking._

 _Of course it doesn't,_ he thought. _That's ridiculous. She's a person, no one can… I don't even want… I'm_ _ **not**_ _sulking._ He scowled angrily at the voice in his head for suggesting anything of the sort. This voice was really beginning to piss him off.

"What was that about?" he growled at her when she finally left the guy's side.

"Blending in," she replied.

 _Bullshit_ , he thought.

"Just focus on the mission," he told her as calmly as he could. Thankfully for the problem he was having with overthinking the situation, almost immediately after that, everything seemed to go to hell.

It was as though if he kept himself busy enough and didn't have time to think, he was okay, but as soon as things slowed down, that was when the trouble started, so it wasn't until later that his brain had time for Jane confusion mode again. This time, they were, _of course,_ ducked behind two vehicles in the middle of a confrontation with an armed fourteen year old. He was not prepared for what Jane said while trying to placate her.

"…It is possible to lie to someone and still love them very much," Jane offered. She was looking directly at him.

He was still processing her words when she left the cover of the vehicle opposite him, exposing herself to the possibility of getting shot by a distraught teenager. Panic surged through him – there was nothing he could do to stop him.

"Jane! _JANE!_ " he whispered insistently, but she ignored him, laying down her gun and standing up.

 _What are you doing, Jane?_ his mind screamed.

He did his best not to let his face betray his thoughts, but he felt like the air had been sucked out of him. Had she been talking about her, or about him?

 _But I… I don't… She… We… It doesn't…_ His brain felt like it was short circuiting.

 _No, it was a coincidence,_ he reasoned. _That's not what she meant. Besides, even if that was what she meant, it's past tense. Over. It doesn't matter._

 _Keep telling yourself that, I guess,_ the voice in his head told him in resignation. It sounded tired.

And that's what he did, as he pushed the thoughts of it away. It didn't matter. It wasn't going to change anything now. It was simply too late. If they could be civil to each other, well… that was as much as he was willing to hope for. Anything more than that just seemed impossible.


	6. This Time and Next Time

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)**_

Jane couldn't remember the last time she'd slept so well. Sleep had never really been something that came easily to her, and she'd been plagued by nightmares for a long time. _Of course_ she had. The more she had remembered about her past, the more things there were to have nightmares about. She wondered how Remi had slept at all. But then again, Remi had had no conscience, so she'd probably slept just find.

This sensation, of having slept blissfully well, was completely unfamiliar. For a few seconds, as she slowly began to wake up, she couldn't help but wonder… _Why have I never slept this well before?_

The answer, of course, became clear in the next second, as she became conscious of the arm around her waist. A split second later, she also felt the rest of him materializing behind her, snuggled up close. He'd been there all along, of course, but it was only as she woke up that she remembered, little by little, the circumstances in which she was waking up.

 _That's Kurt behind me_ , she thought in awe _._ The reality of waking up with him was almost too good to be believed.

When the arm around her waist pulled her closer, she couldn't help but smile. So this was what it was like… _happiness._

Turning to look over her shoulder at him, she was rewarded with a kiss to her temple. "Good morning," he whispered.

"Good morning yourself," she replied groggily

"Did you sleep well?" asked, leaning his chin over her shoulder.

"I didn't even know it was _possible_ to sleep that well," she told him with more than a little bit of awe in her voice.

"Now that's what I like to hear," he replied softly, leaning his head back slightly so that he could kiss her shoulder. Her _bare_ shoulder, she realized as he added, "It helps me make my case for next time."

 _Oh,_ she had only just realized again as it all came rushing back to her, _Right… Last night… We…_ Suffice it to say that it wasn't just her shoulder that was bare.

"Next time, huh?" she asked, a grin spreading across her face. With a little bit of effort because his arm was heavy where it draped over her waist, she managed to turn herself over so that she was facing him. "You're thinking about next time?"

She was surprised just then that she didn't feel self-conscious about lying there, every single one of her tattoos exposed. No, if anything, she felt… _beautiful._

"Well," he paused, as if pretending to consider his answer, smiling devilishly, but using his index finger to innocently trace one of the tattoos on her bare shoulder, down her arm. "I'm still thinking about _this time_ … and about _last night_ …" When he paused again, his finger's movement stopping momentarily as he looked into her eyes, she felt herself blush, but he chuckled and went on, "… and I'm thinking about right now, and how much I like waking up with you… And I know that _eventually_ we'll have to get up… though not any time soon, of course. And since we can't just stay here indefinitely – which I have to say, is really too bad – I also have to think about next time. Because I would rather think about being here with you than anywhere else…"

"Mmmmm," she sighed, "That's a _good_ answer."

"Oh yeah?" he asked in amusement, his finger stopping halfway down her arm. Instead, his hand came to rest flat against her skin, then slid back up, over her shoulder, up her neck and onto her cheek. "So you think I have a decent chance of success?"

"Of ending up here again? For a _next time_?" she replied teasingly. Pretending to think hard for a second, she couldn't help but smile as he looked at her pleadingly.

"Clearly, the power has gone to your head," he observed, narrowing his eyes at her playfully. "Are you telling me that you didn't—"

But he was interrupted by her lips on his, more forcefully than he'd expected. After that, it was quite a while before either of them felt the need to say anything.

A while later, as they caught their breath, once again lying beside each other, something occurred to her. "You know what's really nice?"

"This?" he replied almost immediately, leaning towards her to kiss her forehead and then touch the tip of his nose to hers.

She smiled as she wondered if it was possible for your heart to actually overflow with love, because she swore that was what was happening inside her. "That's a very good guess, but not what I was thinking."

"Alright, then what were you thinking?" he asked with a grin. Again, he traced the inky lines on her skin, this time the ones that came up near her collarbone, but keeping his finger high enough up that had she been wearing one of her tank tops, it wouldn't have gone past it.

"I was thinking," she replied with a yawn, "that if we go back to sleep, then we get to wake up like this, _together_ , all over again."

"That's true," he chuckled, "unless one of us decided to leave, we would definitely wake up together again." After a pause, he looked at her with concern and added, "You're not planning on going anywhere, are you?"

"I was the one who just said how nice it would be to wake up with you again, silly," she reminded him. "I would have to be kidnapped by Sandstorm to get me to leave this bed."

She was surprised when his face darkened at her remark. "Let's not joke about that," he told her solemnly. That was when she realized that considering Sandstorm's liking for picking her up unexpectedly, that could have been a legitimate fear of his.

Smiling back at him apologetically, she nodded. "I'm sorry," she whispered, putting her hand up to his cheek and moving her thumb back and forth against the stubble as they looked into each other's eyes. For a minute neither of them said anything. There was no need. They understood each other perfectly.

Her eyes were feeling heavy, and her hand slowly left his cheek, moving down to sit over his heart. She held it here, her palm flattened over his skin, in a familiar gesture. His fingers stopped tracing the tattoos along her collarbone and he brought his hand to press flat over hers.

"I love you, Jane," he whispered just as she felt herself beginning to drift off to sleep.

His words made her eyelids pop back open for a second, long enough to look up at him and see the sincerity in his eyes. She knew that he loved her, but it was so nice to hear it, as well. "I love you, too, Kurt," she whispered, as she gave in to the tiredness she felt. She felt herself falling asleep with a smile on her face, which she wasn't sure she'd ever done before. Well, maybe last night she had as well.

 _He loves me_. The words echoed over and over in her head as she felt herself falling asleep, and there seemed to be no end to the awe she felt. _How is it possible?_ she wondered. She had done nothing to deserve this happiness – quite the opposite, in fact – and yet… she had it.

The next time she opened her eyes he wasn't beside her, but there was a note in his place. It read, _If you are reading this, close your eyes and pretend you're asleep._

 _Strange_ , she thought, but at the same time a delicious scent wafted into the room, and she decided to play along. Closing her eyes again, she replayed the feeling of waking up with him earlier in her mind. The only word she could think of to describe it was _bliss._

Not too long later, she heard the door to his bedroom creak open, and seconds later, she felt the bed shift slowly beside her. The rustle of paper told her that the note had been removed, and the slight clink of surfaces she couldn't identify by their sound told her that he was doing… _something_. Still, she kept her eyes closed, but couldn't keep from grinning. After all, she was simply too happy _not_ to.

Now the bed shifted slowly just beside her, and she sensed him even before he had the chance to press a gentle kiss to her lips.

"Okay, Sleeping Beauty," he told her, "you can open your eyes now." If it was possible, her grin grew wider when she did, as she saw him right there looking back at her. "I know you were awake," he told her. "I'm sorry you woke up before I finished your surprise. I wanted to be here when you woke up again. But I made you breakfast." Her eyes followed his to a tray at sat on the nightstand, which did, indeed contain a very delicious looking breakfast. Looking back at him, she saw that he was now wearing a t-shirt and pajama pants.

"Forgiven," she whispered, kissing him again gently. "Just make sure you're here _next time_."

Now it was his turn to grin. "Oh, so you're good with _next time_ now?" he asked in amusement.

"I always was. You know that," she told him, wondering if her face could crack from smiling so hard.

"I had a feeling," he chuckled. "Shall I get this for you?" he leaned back in the direction of the tray of food.

"Yes, just give me one second…" she said hesitantly, not wanting to spoil the mood, but really needing to use the bathroom. Sitting up and suddenly _feeling_ every bit as naked as she was, she looked around, trying to remember what she'd done with her clothes.

 _Is it bad that I can't remember where I took off my clothes?_ she wondered.

"Right there," he said, pointing to where one of his t-shirts which he had draped near the end of her side of the bed. "It's clean, I swear." Smiling, she reached for the gray t-shirt, finding that it was even softer than it looked, and pulled it over her head.

"Perfect, thanks," she replied with a smile. Standing up, she added, "I'll be right back, I promise." Less than two minutes later, she was sitting under the covers again, snuggled next to him, still wearing his t-shirt. Both of them had trays of food on their laps, containing scrambled eggs, toast, bacon, slices of melon, and of course, coffee.

The whole time they were eating, as the sun now streamed into the room through the window on the far side of the bed, Jane just grinned to herself.

"So, I'm taking it from the giant grin on your face that this was a success?" he asked her jokingly. "Or… is it something else?"

 _He knows that it isn't something else,_ she thought to herself, _he just wants to hear me say it. And who am I to refuse?_

"It's all perfect," she told him, which made him grin that much more. " _Too_ perfect. I don't—" She stopped short of saying she didn't deserve it all, since that would bring up an entire topic – namely, the past – that she didn't want to think about, much less talk about.

"Yes you do," he whispered. Somehow he must have known what she'd been about to say. "All of it."

Shaking her head at him, she was at a loss for words. When he leaned over slowly, careful not to upset either tray of food, however, she met him halfway. She may not have been able to find the right words, but she could certainly kiss him.

The kiss was quick and innocent, since they had so much sitting on their laps, but the sentiment was perfectly expressed. He went back to his food, but she sighed deeply and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"Are you okay?" he asked her after swallowing a bite of eggs.

"No," she replied, though sounding anything but upset as she picked up her head from his shoulder and looked up at him in awe. "I'm so much better than okay. So much better than anything good… I don't even know if there's a word for it."

"Perfect," he replied, "Just what I was going for."

This time she leaned her face down against his shoulder, planting a kiss on the cotton of his t-shirt, her forehead leaning against his neck. She felt him turn slowly, carefully moving to put his arms around her while once again not disturbing their trays. Her arms wound around the middle of him as well, slowly. Words were unnecessary as they held onto each other.

Gradually, they each allowed themselves to release the arm farther from the other so that they could turn to face their food again, and attempt to eat their breakfast, leaving the closer arm around the other. It was a little awkward for eating purposes, but it satisfied their need for closeness.

When they'd finally finished their breakfasts, Kurt set the trays on the floor on his side of the bed and they relaxed under the covers once again. He laid on his back, his left arm bent so that his hand was under his head, his elbow sticking out to the far side of Jane. She, on the other hand, used him as a pillow, leaning her head against his chest and curling up beside him, her right arm draped across his chest as his right arm curled behind her and around her waist, pulling her closer.

"I'm glad the world doesn't need saving today," she whispered.

Chuckling slightly, he nodded in agreement. "Me, too," he whispered back. "But don't say that any louder, just to be sure."

She grinned, closing her eyes happily.

That was when it started. The familiar feeling that something wasn't right… the feeling that it was all slipping away. And in an instant, she knew exactly what was happening. After all, it had already happened too many times before for her not to recognize it. This wasn't real, and it was about to disappear.

 _No,_ she thought desperately. _No no no no no no no…_ But it didn't matter how many times she said no. It wasn't going to change anything, and she knew it.

And just like that, she was back in her own bed, staring up at the same stark white ceiling she always was when she woke up from these dreams. _Nightmares_. They weren't bad in and of themselves, but waking up from them…

 _Or maybe I have it backwards,_ she thought, _maybe it's my life that's a nightmare._

 _Don't be so dramatic,_ the voice in her head urged.

 _Dramatic?_ she almost demanded. _I was a terrorist whose entire body was tattooed before my memory was erased and I was sent to infiltrate the FBI so that I could make one particular man believe that I was his long since dead childhood best friend who his own father had killed. So you tell me, which one sounds like a nightmare? That, or the dreams of domestic bliss with someone who I'm apparently stupid enough to dream – over and over, no less – could actually love me? I'm_ _ **not**_ _just being dramatic._

Having silenced the voice in her head for the time being, she laid very still, taking slow deep breaths. _I have to calm down,_ she told herself.

While she desperately wanted to hold onto the feeling she'd had in her dream, she knew that she couldn't, that if she did, it would only hurt more – especially later, when she inevitably saw him at work, and he looked at her with such… detachment. That was a step up from hostility of course, but it stung nonetheless.

If only she didn't have to face the reality of him day in and day out, then just maybe she could have let herself preserve the feeling of bliss from her dream, even though it would still have stung. But since she _did_ have to face him, letting herself think about what could have been was only going to make her feel worse when she came face to face with what _was._ Face to face with him.

After five or so minutes of slow, deep breaths, she felt calmer. Not calm, not happy, and not okay with any of it… but at least calm _enough_ to sit up and swing her legs over the side of the bed, to take shaky breaths as she forced her feet onto the floor, forced herself to stand up and walk to the bathroom, to splash cold water on her face and then face herself in the mirror.

 _You did this to yourself._

Those words had haunted her ever since that night long ago. They played in her mind so often, they were almost automatic – especially at times when everything seemed most hopeless. She hated herself for taking part in that whole mess. She hated Oscar for showing her that video and drawing her back in. She hated Carter for abducting her and putting her in that situation. But the sad truth was, she had no one to blame but herself. The self she had been as well as the self she had become. She had thought that maybe her new self was a better person than the old one – Remi – but more and more she was feeling like no, Jane really wasn't that much different.

 _That's not true and you know it_ , the voice in her head piped up again in frustration.

 _Do I?_ she asked, staring at herself in the mirror. Her eyes looked especially green after the splash of cold water on her face. _I don't know_ _ **anything**_ _anymore. Maybe I'm just as bad as she was, and the rest of it just hasn't come to the surface yet. Maybe I haven't changed at all. How else could I have done the things I've done that I_ _ **can**_ _remember? Lied to him, betrayed him?_

 _You did those things to protect him. You_ _ **know**_ _that,_ the voice replied.

She felt a sudden urge to smash her forehead against the mirror in frustration, and she pulled her face back from the glass sharply in alarm. That had never happened before.

 _Well that worked out fabulously, didn't it? Protecting him?_ she asked the voice sarcastically.

Feeling her frustration rise again, she closed her eyes and counted to ten. When that didn't work, she did it in Mandarin, then Bulgarian. Then French, Spanish and Tibetan. In Russian, Swahili and Hebrew, and then, just to make it an even ten languages, she added Thai for good measure.

 _You are some kind of fucked up,_ she told herself, opening her eyes and, after allowing them to move back up slowly to the mirror, staring hard at herself _again_ , albeit from farther away this time.

 _Maybe I am,_ she conceded. What else could she say? She'd just dreamed a very intimate dream about a man who hated her, had yet _another_ conversation with herself about whether or not she was a person she couldn't even remember, then counted to ten in ten different languages. She was fairly sure that counted as fucked up.

 _He doesn't hate you…_ the voice in her head whispered hopefully. _And it's getting better. Slowly…_

 _Better?_ she repeated mockingly. _Because he doesn't despise me as openly, just wants nothing to do with me? Doesn't trust me? Not that I can blame him. I don't trust me either._

 _Do you trust him?_ the voice replied.

 _I don't know,_ she answered more slowly. _Look where that got me. I still have the scars as a reminder._

 _So does he,_ came the counter argument in her head. _Just not the same kind._

She was tired of arguing, even with herself, tired of thinking about this. Finally able to disengage herself from staring at her own reflection as if it held the answers that didn't actually exist, she brushed her teeth and then started downstairs to make coffee.

Nothing was going to change what had happened. Maybe she _could_ concede that things had gotten slightly better. After all, the open hostility seemed to mostly be behind them. It didn't seem like much of an improvement, and it certainly wasn't what she'd ever thought she'd have to settle for between them, but all things considered… it seemed like the best she could hope for now. If only she could stop having these dreams.

X

It would never cease to amaze her how much could happen in a day in their jobs. Another source of amazement was that she could be so focused on the fact that there was nothing she could do to make things better between herself and Kurt, forgetting that they could get worse – or at least, worse for _her_ – which was exactly what had happened that day _._

She liked to tell herself that she wasn't bothered by Allie's bombshell admission that she was pregnant with Kurt's baby. She liked to tell herself that she was happy for both of them. And she'd always been a pretty good liar, so really, there was no problem. Was there?

Well, no, except for one glaring fact: That it was not true.

No, _that_ wasn't quite accurate either. She _did_ want him to be happy, and Allie, too, she supposed, at least in theory. Happy together? That idea made her a little queasy, and it stirred up something she wasn't all that accustomed to feeling. _Jealousy_ , was it? Apparently he and Allie hadn't had too much trouble communicating after all, she decided. Was he as "choosy" as he'd claimed? Maybe… so why had she gotten the idea that he'd chose _her_?

 _He might have, but you took care of that one yourself._

 _Right…_ She sighed heavily.

Still, in the end, she wanted the best for him. He was probably the person who deserved happiness more than anyone else in the world.

 _What about you?_ the voice asked.

 _You're kidding, right?_ She wasn't even going to dignify that with a reply. She deserved exactly what she had gotten, after all. All of it.

There had been a time when she and Kurt had routinely come into the locker room together as they left the building for the evening. Other times, they'd simply run into each other there. These days, Jane did her best to be in and out of the locker room as quickly as possible. She liked to avoid running into anyone, but especially Kurt. Just because things were better didn't mean they were good, exactly. She had always liked talking to him there, where things felt less formal. But these were all just more reasons to avoid spending time there now, if she could avoid it. Too many memories.

After the day they'd had, she just wanted to go home. The whole Allie having Kurt's baby thing was going to take a while to digest. She couldn't decide what unsettled her more – the fact that it was happening, or the fact that he hadn't told her.

 _Of course he didn't tell me_ , she thought, furious at herself for her own indignation. He owed her nothing, after all. And yet, she couldn't help but feel hurt.

 _Hurt that it's happening, or that he didn't tell you?_ she demanded of herself once again. The question kept repeating itself in her head.

 _Yes,_ was all she could think. _Both, maybe?_

She was on her way to the door of the locker room when Kurt walked in, ending up directly in her path.

"Jane," he said, looking at her seriously. "I wanted to thank you. For what you did today. For Allie." And then a pause, and in a softer voice he added, "For me."

"Of course," was all she could manage in a similarly soft voice. "Is she okay?"

"Yeah," Kurt replied, feeling awkward about the conversation. He knew that he should have told her, despite everything that had happened between them, but it had just never been the right time. "Both good," he almost whispered.

"Good," she managed, pulling her face into as much of a smile as she could muster. "And congrats, that's… I always thought you'd make an amazing dad." She kept the smile on her face, even though her chest was tight. This wasn't exactly the way she'd let herself imagine things going. Looking back now, she felt stupid. Why had she dared to even think that she…? That _they_ …? It had been ridiculous, she could see that now.

He was smiling at her awkwardly, as if he wasn't sure what he should say. As if he wanted to say something but… She understood, though. After all, that was what there was the most of left between them – awkwardness.

As he looked at her and uttered the words, "Thank you," he thought about how strange this conversation was. That they'd ended up here, like this. Him having a baby with Allie, a woman, he now knew, that he cared a great deal about, but didn't love. He had never loved her, whatever he might have thought at the time. He had loved Jane.

 _Loved… past tense. But if that was true, then why did his chest feel so tight just then?_

Tilting his head to the side and smiling, he added, "I wish I had that confidence." When she laughed softly, it almost reminded him of how things had once been between them, a long time ago. It wasn't the same, it _couldn't_ be the same now… and yet, in some ways it was.

 _God, I've missed this,_ he thought.

"How hard can it be, right?" she asked, neither of them knowing for sure about parenthood, of course, except that they knew it wasn't _easy. Then again,_ she thought, _compared to everything else we've been through…_

She had missed this, and it was hard to stop the ache in her chest that was intensifying just then. It was painful to think about just _how much_ she had missed this… this ease between them. And yet, she almost didn't want to stop the ache, because it came with the memories, and as painful as they were now, they were also sweet. Bittersweet, she supposed.

"Anyway… thank you, Jane. Good night," he told her before she could say anything else. There was nothing else _to_ say, really. All she could do was smile and wish that the conversation wasn't over so soon… and that the ache in her chest would go away.

"Good night, Kurt," she managed, closing her eyes as he walked away, thankful that he couldn't read her as well as he used to – maybe that he didn't _want to_ read her as well as he used to. She wouldn't have wanted him to have known how much this entire thing with Allie hurt her. It was stupid, and she knew it. She had no right to be hurt, no claim on him, after all. Getting back together with Allie… made sense, she conceded, even if it stung her heart the way pouring alcohol on an open wound would. She was physically in pain.

Thankfully, she ran into Patterson in the hall shortly afterwards, which was an excuse to change the subject. Just then, a change of subject had been what she'd desperately needed.

Later, at back at her safe house, however, her thoughts reverted right back to the events of the day. She knew that she needed to be realistic. Things were… _okay_ between them. They'd had a very civil conversation in the locker room, with even a touch of the old warmth and familiarity between them that she'd missed so much.

Of course, that was the problem. As much as she wanted things to be good between them again, knowing what she'd lost… it just made it harder to have him smile at her, knowing what she'd given up.

 _But it wasn't better when he hated you…_ the voice in her head reminded her.

 _No, it wasn't,_ she agreed sadly. _I just can't win. No matter what I do, it's going to hurt._ It was a painful truth, but one to which she had to resign herself.

 _But maybe you can at least be… friends,_ the voice suggested tentatively. It seemed like a lot to hope for, and it wasn't going to be easy. Anything but.

 _Maybe,_ she thought with a sigh. Out of habit, she told herself to keep breathing. There wasn't much she could do besides keep putting one foot in front of another.

Of course, then she heard his voice in her head from so long ago... back at the very beginning. _Keep breathing, Jane._ The pain stabbed at her heart faster than she had expected, and for a second it paralyzed her. Somehow she managed to breathe through it, but she curled into herself tightly, there on the couch.

 _In and out_ , she thought. _In and out._ There wasn't much else she could do.


	7. The Rest of It

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)**_

They were sitting on a hardwood floor in an empty room as they stared out the window at the sunset, their legs stretched out in front of them, propped up on their elbows behind them. From this particular window, they had a great view of the colors that blended into each other in the darkening sky. She still couldn't believe their luck at stumbling on such a place completely by accident. They hadn't even known until they'd come by for an impromptu look this evening, in their excitement for tomorrow's big move.

His right leg was draped over her left, and she was leaned against him, her head against his shoulder.

"I love it here already," she murmured.

"Just think how much more you'll love it when we the furniture gets here," he told her, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. She chuckled in agreement, turning towards him so that her left cheek rested against the soft cotton of his t-shirt, sighing contentedly.

"Impossible," she mumbled against him.

She felt him shifting behind her as he laid back onto the floor, his arms no longer supporting him, but instead closing around her, and then suddenly turning her over so that her back was no longer to him. As she let out a squeal, her arms shot out reflexively to catch her as she now found herself lying on top of him, his hands on her waist and a delighted expression on his face.

"Smooth," she told him. "That was a new move." Grinning down at him, she laughed quietly as her hair fell around her face. Since her hands were busy holding her up just high enough above him that her hair didn't fall into _his_ face as well, she had no way to push her hair back – not that it would have stayed back. It was too short to be especially cooperative when it came to tucking neatly behind her ears.

His hands moved lightly from her waist, skimming lightly along the cotton that covered her ribcage and then over the backs of her shoulders, then, finally finding skin, up her neck, over her cheeks and into her hair. Having completed their journey, those hands proceeded to tuck as many strands of hair behind her ears as possible. Within seconds, about half of her hair had succumbed to gravity and was falling towards his face again, which made them both chuckle. Moving his fingers back to her hairline, he simply threaded them through the front of her hair and held them there, his fingers now some sort of large human hair clip.

"I like that, but it's not too practical," she told him with a grin. The feeling of his fingers against her scalp was giving her goosebumps. It was a shame they couldn't just stay like this. But knowing that they couldn't, she shifted her weight to her left hand and quickly held up her right. There on her wrist he could see that there was a plain, black hair elastic.

Feeling her tense slightly at the effort of holding herself up on one arm, he quickly pulled his right hand out of her hair so that he could reach out and remove the elastic from her wrist, allowing her to put her hand back down. Next, he threaded both of his hands back through her hair again, his fingers once again woven through the strands which no longer fell into her face. Working slowly and carefully, since he wasn't in a rush – and besides, he could see that she liked what he was doing – he took his time gathering the hair that was between his fingers into a messy ponytail – he was doing his best, but his skills were very limited in this area. After twisting the elastic around her hair several times, as he had been instructed in the past, he removed his hands reluctantly from her hair and admired his handwork for a few seconds before looking back at her face. There was no way around it – she was beaming at him.

"Thanks," she whispered, moving her face ever so slowly closer to his as he brought his hands up to her cheeks. He gave her an infatuated, goofy grin in return, words seeming to fail him at that moment as his face stretched upwards slightly to meet hers. This only made her smile wider, sensing his impatience, and she stopping moving towards him.

"What's wrong?" she asked teasingly. "Impatient?"

"For you? Always," he growled, tugging at her face in an attempt to bring it closer to his.

But she was enjoying teasing him too much, so she didn't relent immediately. Instead, she held herself there, above him, peering down at him and grinning. When he couldn't bring her down to his level, she felt him pulling himself up, his face slowly moving closer to hers. Ever so slowly, she once again began moving her face closer to his, biting her bottom lip gently in amusement, her smile still growing. Just before their lips met, she stopped once again, looking into his eyes and seeing frustration mixed with anticipation. She knew that she shouldn't be enjoying this as much as she was, but she simply couldn't help it.

"Enough with the power trip," he growled at her. "Stop teasing me and just kiss me, already." She laughed gently, feeling a surge of emotion. Just when she thought that she couldn't love him more, somehow, she did. It happened to her constantly, and yet, she was always in awe when it did. Finally, she relented, leaning down the last tiny little bit and kissing him.

The kiss was gentle at first, but quickly became more urgent, taking on a life of its own. When they finally came up for air quite a while later, their clothes were strewn across the empty floor. She was still leaning over him, but no longer holding herself up. Instead, she lay flush against him, her head on his shoulder so that she could kiss his neck lightly as she was slowly able to breathe normally again. Moving slowly and stretching out one arm to reach for her clothes, as they all seemed to have been – conveniently? – tossed just out of her reach, she simultaneously tried to catch her breath.

"What's your rush?" he asked her. As he brushed his fingertips along her upper back, she simple gave up on reaching for her clothes and leaned back against him. Slowly but surely, he traced the lines of ink that formed his name on her back, moving his fingertips along the rounded corners of the lines around "Weller" almost exactly.

"How do you do that?" she asked. She could hear the amazement in her own voice.

"Do what?" he asked with a smile, leaning down to kiss her forehead.

"How do you know exactly where it is, without looking?" she clarified.

"How do _you_ know which one is right there?" he asked with a grin, and she gave him a look that said _Come on! Of course I know._

"I know my tattoos," she told him confidently. "You should know that by now."

"Well, I've spent a _lot_ more time looking at them than you have," he replied in a low voice, his fingers continuing to move back and forth over the letters that he couldn't see, but knew that he was touching. "After all, I've been studying them since the first day we met."

Leaning back slightly to look at him with one eyebrow arched, she shook her head. "You're lucky that you didn't use that as a pick up line," she told him. Then, in an exaggeratedly smooth voice, she did an imitation of what that might have sounded like. "Hey, baby, I've been looking at naked pictures of you since the first day we met."

His lips curled into a smile then, and she couldn't help but laugh at her own joke. It really was amusing when put that way.

"Hey," he replied innocently, and only a little bit defensively, "I can't help it if it's the _truth."_ After a pause, he added, "But you're right, it sounds… _very_ creepy." Once again, his hands now rested lightly on her waist, but this time he touched skin instead of fabric. Slowly, his hands moved up her sides just as they had done before, this time stopping on top of her shoulders, where his thumbs moved back and forth over the ink lines.

She watched him carefully as he seemed to be lost in thought, when suddenly he looked into the eyes as if something had just occurred to him. "It must have been… For you, I mean… We were all strangers to you." The words weren't coming out quite coherently, and he paused, trying to think of the right way to say it. "I can't imagine _._ I mean… I was there, of course, and we were just doing our jobs, but I just…" His face was suddenly pained, but he couldn't seem to look away from her face.

Though in one way it seemed impossible, in another way she could clearly see that he had only just, at that moment, begun to understood maybe an ounce of how she'd felt back then. To say that it had been awkward at the time – to have them all studying pictures of every part of her body day in and day out, no matter how intimate, was an understatement, but there had been no other choice. The fact that he was understanding now, even so much later, when to her it was all now so long ago and not even a blip on her radar anymore… she could empathize. It seemed backwards, but at that moment _she_ really felt badly for _him_.

"Yeah, I know you were," she told him quietly. Leaning her weight onto her left side against his right, so that moving her right arm wouldn't disturb her balance and make her fall onto the hard floor, she reached up and stroked his cheek with her thumb, looking up at him and smiling sadly. "It doesn't matter anymore though," she added. "Besides, that's so far from the worst thing that happened in all of this…"

Somehow even though her words were meant to be reassuring, saying that just seemed to make things worse. At least that was her impression from watching him. "Hey," she whispered, pushing herself back up onto her arms so that she could move up to his eye level, her fingers now combing through _his_ hair. "We're here, aren't we?"

Finally, the sadness on his face began to fade as a genuine smile broke through. "Yeah," he said with a small smile.

"The rest of it…" She just shrugged. It was the past, after all. It really _didn't_ matter. After all, she'd survived without having one – a past – for a long time, so having a painful one now… well, that wasn't exactly new. She could live with it, if she got _this_ as her present.

He leaned his face up towards hers and, taking mercy on him, she leaned down towards him. This time, the kiss was gentle, tender, and short. He tried to shift slightly, and a low groan escaped from him.

"Are you okay?" she asked in concern.

"Yeah," he replied unconvincingly.

"I should let you sit up," she told him. "You've had your back against the hard floor for a while now. _Really, this is why people don't do this one the floor – most of the time, anyway,_ she thought.

"For you? Of course," he told her. "It's the least I could do."

The look in his eyes told her that he wasn't just talking about being the one to have his back to the hard floor, but about the things in their past about which they didn't often speak – the black site, getting shot to infiltrate Sandstorm, her arrest… There were a lot of not only mentally but physically painful parts of the past that she remembered. She'd told him time and time again that he had nothing to make up for, but he remained unconvinced.

There had been one time when he'd actually said the words – in one form or another, he'd articulated his need to keep her from being the one who always had to suffer the most pain, whether physical or emotional. She'd been through so much already that the things he was now trying to protect her from almost didn't matter, but the gesture was sweet. It seemed very important to him to protect her from such minor things as her back against a hard floor for an hour or so, so she didn't bother to tell him that things like that would not have been a big deal.

Giving him a quick peck on the lips before she moved, she then pushed herself up and off of him, now sitting up beside him. This time, when she reached for her clothes, he didn't stop her. He sat up stiffly, his fingertips trailing down her back before she had a chance to put her shirt back on. With a shiver, she turned to look at him over her shoulder to see him smiling back at her.

The sun had set, and only now did they realize how dark it had gotten. The neighborhood outside the window was alight with street lights, casting a warm glow on the quiet street. "We're going to need to get some curtains, or blinds, or _something_ ," she mused aloud.

He chuckled in agreement, nodding his head as he pulled on his shirt. Beside him, she was already standing up and pulling on her pants. "Hopefully we didn't offend any of the neighbors," she mused aloud, a little embarrassed at the thought.

"Well on the bright side, we didn't have any lights on, so they shouldn't have been able to see anything," he reasoned, now standing up beside her.

"True," she agreed, turning and wrapping her arms loosely around his neck. They were both now fully dressed.

"You ready to go?" he asked. "We'll be back here bright and early tomorrow with the movers."

Grinning in amusement, she nodded. "I love how you refer to the team as _the movers_ ," she told him. "I'm sure they'd get a kick out of that." 

"Well…" he said, drawing out the word the way he often did. He shrugged, grinning back at her, and then kissed her on the forehead. Leaning back to look at her, he simply remained still for a few seconds, then sighed happily. "Come on, let's go see what there is to eat in this new neighborhood of ours."

She nodded, following him to the door, but paused before closing it, turning back to look at the empty space, lit only by the light of the streetlights outside. It was blank now, but the possibilities for it were endless… just like their future. They'd both wanted a chance to start over, and now they were getting it. Well, as much as they could start over while living in the same city and keeping the same jobs. At least the ghosts of the past would have a harder time haunting them in this new place, one that wasn't already full of memories of things and people they would rather forget.

Smiling to herself, she was overcome with a feeling of peace as she turned around to where Kurt was waiting for her in the hall, closing the door behind her.

Except that instead of seeing Kurt there waiting for her, she found herself opening her eyes and staring straight ahead at one of four blank walls in her bedroom. Not the walls of Kurt's apartment, which had become "theirs," but of the safe house where the FBI had installed her after "bringing" her back to work with them, if what had happened could be described that way. It was certainly the more diplomatic way to say that she'd been forced back against her will, anyway.

Blinking hard, she hoped that she could somehow transform her surroundings by sheer willpower alone… but alas, it didn't seem like it was going to work. Instead, she lay still, attempting not to let herself feel the disappointment of waking up from yet another one of those dreams… one of the most intense, intimate ones yet.

 _It doesn't mean anything_ , she told herself. She didn't believe it for a second, because _of course_ it meant something, and it actually made her feel worse to try to convince herself of that.

 _It means quite a bit, actually_ , her mind replied. _It means you want it._ _ **Him**_ _._

 _But it doesn't matter what I want,_ she thought sadly, only just barely avoiding addressing whether or not he _was_ indeed what she wanted. _It's never going to happen._

 _Just focus on one day at a time,_ the voice in her head replied. It was obviously changing the subject in order not to have to answer the question.

 _One day at a time. Right._ The voice in her head made it sound so easy.

Turning over to look at the clock, she groaned. Only 2:04 am. Already she felt like she'd been in bed for days. She actually felt achy from sleeping. How was that even possible?

Closing her eyes, she willed herself to go back to sleep. She tried to focus on only one thing: the feeling of intense happiness that she'd had in her dream. Just then she didn't care if it made her feel worse later. For once she was going to think about how she was feeling _now…_ which was miserable. She always spent so much time blocking out her current reality – which was ironic, since she'd so desperately wanted to remember, way back when – but at that moment, she didn't have the energy. Just then, she wanted to swim in it – that feeling of happiness. It may not be real, but it was the only happiness that she was going to get – possibly ever – so why _not_ give in to it?

She felt lightheaded as she closed her eyes, and she knew that she was falling back to sleep. Her last thought before she surrendered to unconsciousness once again was, _Good. I like it better there._ Of course, that wasn't always the case, because some of her dreams were terrifying, but the dreams like the one she'd just had… just then, she gave herself permission to live there. After all, maybe reality just wasn't worth it.

Then suddenly, she was back in Kurt's apartment, and she was conscious of that and nothing else. Everything was unusually bright, as if spotlights were shining on them. Light reflected off the white sweater that she was wearing, which was a strange enough feeling because she didn't ever remember wearing white before. The table was set for a dinner party, and she and Kurt were there, smiling at each other in his kitchen. She was chopping with a very large knife, and Kurt was pouring a fruit glaze over a cheesecake, which was one of her favorite desserts.

She smiled at him then, because she simply couldn't help herself. He held out a rubber spatula covered in the fruit glaze for her to taste, but she moved straight past it to kiss him, feeling him smile as he kissed her right back. At that moment, she felt delirious with happiness – the moment could not have been more perfect.

As she moved back to look into his eyes, there was a knock at the door. It was the company that they were expecting.

"Come in," Kurt called. The door opened, and in walked Roman. She watched, her smile growing ever brighter, as Kurt and her brother gave each other a manly, one-armed hug, patting each other on the back. This moment simply couldn't have gotten much better. Here she was with everything she could have wanted. Love, family, a place to belong and the two people who meant the most to her in the world.

Wine was opened, food was served, and they were now seated at the table, where conversation flowed easily. What she liked the best was just how right it all felt, how easy… how _perfect_. If there was one flawless moment that she could have hoped for… this was it.

And then just like that, in an instant the illusion began to unravel. The candles in the middle of table were suddenly extinguished, as if they'd been blown out, and when she happened to look up towards the door that opened onto the hallway, it swung open. Neither Kurt nor Roman seemed to notice a thing, somehow, but there was no time for it to occur to her that anything was amiss. She laid her napkin on the table and got up, walking towards the open door with a growing sense of apprehension. There was something wrong, and though she didn't know what it was, dread grew from the pit of her stomach and outward.

Taking a step into the hallway, she looked around but saw no one. However, when she looked down at the floor by her feet, she saw a bag that looked exactly like the one from which she had emerged in Times Square, complete with a tag that read _Call the FBI_. As she watched something inside the bag wiggle back and forth, there was no mistaking that something was wrong. Her stomach churned as she looked at it, and then even more when she turned around to look back into the apartment, and saw that the Kurt and Roman were nowhere to be found.

 _What the hell is happening?_ her mind screamed.

 _You know…_ a voice at the back of her head whispered.

She did know… but she didn't _want_ to.

Turning back around to face the hallway again, she found Remi standing in front of her, looking at her with a cold stare. "This doesn't belong to you," she told Jane menacingly.

 _But…_ Jane's mind stalled. _But… How…?_ After all, she _was_ Remi, physically at least.

There was no more time to wonder, however, because even as she tried to close the door to stop Remi from advancing on her, the other woman – who shouldn't even have _been_ another woman – kicked the door in, hitting Jane in the face and causing her to stumble backwards. The door then flew open and Remi walked through it, stepping forward and hitting Jane with such force that she knocked her down.

Of course, it wasn't as though Jane was unable to defend herself, she'd just been momentarily stunned. Now knowing that she needed to wake up from her trance like state and react, she stood up and began to fight back.

They knocked each other down repeatedly, but over and over they got back up and continued to fight. "You can't have it," Remi growled at Jane, grasping her around the throat before managing to toss her onto the dining room table, sending a shower of broken dishes everywhere. There Jane lay, attempting to catch her breath but for some reason unable to move as Remi stood over her at the end of the table. Though she hadn't moved away, Remi was now somehow holding the large knife with which Jane had been chopping vegetables earlier over her head, aiming it straight for Jane's chest.

Before Jane had a chance to react, Remi plunged the knife into Jane's heart as she gasped desperately. This was it… somehow, she was being murdered by her own alter ego – even though it still didn't make any sense.

That was the second that Jane sat up in bed, gasping for breath, clutching at her chest with both hands where she had sworn that the knife had pierced her, slowly looking around and realizing that it hadn't been real. None of it. She hadn't been preparing for a dinner party with Kurt, hadn't been kissing him or watching him hug Roman, she hadn't fought against Remi as a separate person, and there had been no knife plunged into her heart. She felt so many things at once, both relief and loss, happiness and heartache, and fear… so much fear. Was she losing her mind?

The only thing that she knew for absolute certain, however, was that there was no way that she was going back to sleep that night. She couldn't take another dream, good or bad.

Turning to look at her alarm clock, which glowed brightly in the darkness across the room, she saw that she had somehow managed to sleep all the way to 5:03 am. While early for most people, this was very late for her. And yet, at the same time she felt like she hadn't slept _at all_. It seemed impossible, yet she was just as exhausted as she'd been when she laid down the night before, possibly more so. Yes, it was going to be a long day.

 _Is there another kind?_ she asked herself. The answer, of course, was that no, every day felt impossibly long, and sleep never seemed to give her any relief – especially not with the dreams she'd been having lately. If anything, sleep had become exhausting.

She couldn't help but wonder… after Sandstorm had finally been wiped out, would she finally be able to sleep? Just then, the idea seemed too good to be true. After all, she'd never really known what it was like to have a restful sleep. There was no time before Sandstorm… at least not one of which she had any memory.

 _Remi probably slept just fine,_ she thought cynically, still catching her breath. _After all, she didn't feel remorse about anything she was doing, or anything she'd done. All of her horrible actions could be justified, at least in her mind._ The thought made Jane shiver.

Though she could feel her emotions still simmering just below the surface, it surprised her to realize that slowly, she was feeling less and less traumatized from waking up from these dreams. Yes, she was still significantly unsettled, especially by the part where Remi had killed her, but the happy ones, on the other hand… She felt the pain of their loss less and less each time she woke up from one. Not because she wanted what she saw there any less – if anything, she wanted it _more_ – but she was slowly numbing herself to the pain they caused her.

 _It's about time_ , she told herself. _I can only take so much._ At the same time, however, it scared her that she didn't feel it.

 _Do you_ _ **want**_ _to feel that?_ she demanded of herself.

 _Of course not,_ she thought, her eyes closing as a wave of misery passed over her. _I just want…_ But how could she finish that sentence? Why would she even bother? After all, wanting didn't do her any good. It didn't change one single thing, it just made her miserable. No, being numb was better. If she didn't let herself want anything, it wouldn't hurt.

Or at least, that was how it was _supposed_ to work.

On that note, she sighed and gathered her strength before she turned toward the side of the bed, pulled the blankets off of her and pushing herself up, moving robotically through her morning routine from the moment her feet hit the floor. There was nothing she could do but keep moving, keep pushing herself. She had to believe that they would take down Sandstorm eventually, simply refused to believe that they would fail. After all, who knew just how high the stakes were? Probably even higher than they had yet imagined, knowing her mother. Shepherd seemed to want to destroy _everything_ , no matter the cost.

And after Sandstorm was taken down…? Well, after that it didn't matter what happened. She knew that she probably wouldn't make it past that point, anyway. Somehow, in her mind the end of Sandstorm had become synonymous with the end of _her_ , as well. Shepherd wasn't going to go down easily, and it wouldn't have surprised Jane if it required her to sacrifice herself. What _was_ surprising was that that thought didn't bother her. On the contrary, it seemed fitting. She didn't deserve more than that anyway – stopping Sandstorm was her act of penance for all the things she had done, both as Remi and as Jane. There was nothing left for her but to defeat her terrorist mother. After that… well, there wasn't exactly anything else for her to look forward to.

X

Once again, the day was longer and more complicated than she could have imagined. Just when she thought she had a handle on the way things would go, she discovered that no, she did not. The first indication that the day would be taking an unexpected turn had been the appearance of Rich Dotcom. It had been a while since they had seen him, and despite how attached he seemed to her and to Kurt, she bristled at having him in the NYO.

Or maybe it was _because_ of Rich's attachment to them that bothered her so much today. After all, he enjoyed every chance to marvel over the two of them as one cohesive unit – which they certainly no longer were. It seemed that ever since the first day they'd met, he'd had an unhealthy obsession with the status of her relationship with Kurt. Now that there really was no relationship whatsoever, she wasn't sure how Rich was going to take it, though she'd have put her money on "badly" if she had to guess.

But that day they were tasked with saving his life, and taking down _the Akkadian_ , who he claimed was hunting him, as well, and that was what they would do – no matter how he grated on their nerves. No matter how he looked from her to Kurt and somehow seemed to know things about them that they would never have dreamed of telling him. Of course, he didn't have all the facts right, but he picked up on the change in chemistry between the two of them since the last time he'd seen them immediately.

"There is a lot of emotional distance between you two right now. And look at this, she can't even maintain eye contact. What's going on?" Rich asked, as if he was somehow in a position to be asking questions. And then, just when it seemed to Jane that Rich couldn't say anything to make the room _more_ uncomfortable, mostly because what he was saying was relatively true and they knew it, he added in a loud whisper, "Did you guys have sex?"

"Shut up," Kurt ordered him. Of course, it didn't work.

"Oh, was it bad?" Rich asked.

Gazes shifted between Nas, who stood in front of the table to which was Rich was cuffed, and Kurt beside her, as Jane leaned against the wall off to the side and looked away, doing her best not to be there.

"Oh... this is interesting," Rich observed, enjoying himself far more than he had any right to. As Nas stared at Rich coldly and he looked back and forth between the other two, Zapata excused herself from the room to take a phone call, "Seriously, the chemistry on this team is all off. I blame the Iron Lady here."

Rich was stating the obvious, it seemed to Jane, and yet… he was the only one who didn't just pretend that nothing had changed. Not that she could fault the rest of them. After all, they didn't especially want to be associated with her, and she understood why – she had, once again, done this to herself.

Rich seemed unconcerned with the cold stare that Nas had locked on him. As a matter of fact, he admitted that he was delighted to be right where he was, in what he described as an aesthetically pleasing interrogation room. He didn't seem to have any plans to tell them anything more useful than what he had already said, and there was every likelihood that he would continue to discuss the status of Jane and Kurt's relationship. This, of course, meant that a change of scenery was in order, and Jane and Kurt, along with several guards, escorted him to Holding.

As Kurt shoved him into a shoebox sized cell, it seemed for a second that Rich was going to be serious with them – for once. Instead, after begging them to listen, he squandered the last of their patience when he looked at Jane and offered, "Kurt is clearly still in love with you. You don't see this?"

"Good bye, Rich," Jane said firmly, in annoyance, as the door was closed on him. Despite the fact that she knew that Rich was being frustrating on purpose, as he always had been, now she was angry – both with both him for what he'd said, and with herself for letting him get under her skin. It was a ridiculous thing to say. If Rich was so good at reading the two of them, as he'd always claimed, he would have known that that wasn't true. _She_ certainly knew it.

"He's just confused, Jane! He's confused!" Rich was yelling as the door slammed on him. Both Jane and Kurt were already walking away, his voice cut off abruptly behind him by the closing of several layers of metal doors.

 _Aren't we all,_ she thought ruefully, turning and walking away, keeping Kurt behind her as she stalked back down the hallway. She knew that it wasn't true, but she simply couldn't look Kurt in the eye just then. That feeling that she had after she woke up from one of those dreams was back, and it unsettled her. Normally by the time she got to work, she had talked herself down, compressing her feelings back into a box in the back of her mind, and keeping her emotions in check.

Lately, however, there were times when one of them would say or do something that threatened this delicate balance that she'd created, and for a second or two, she would get a feeling that reminded her of how things had been between them before. Back at the beginning. The tension between them was beginning to thaw, and things _were_ better than they had been when she'd first come back… when they'd both been so angry with each other… But even as things got better between them, painfully slowly, it felt harder in a different way. After all, the better the terms they were on, the more it reminded her of what she'd lost. No, not lost. What she had _given up_.

After all, she had done this to herself.

She could still hear him walking behind her, his footsteps closing in, and she simply wasn't ready to face him. He had a history of being able to read her _too well_ , and even though she wasn't sure whether this would be the case now, she wasn't willing to risk it. She _felt_ as though everything inside her was showing on her face just then, but he didn't need to see it. Thankfully, there was a women's bathroom door on the right only a few steps ahead, and she nearly threw herself through it just before he caught up with her.

 _That was close,_ she thought as she found her balance after stumbling through the doorway, narrowly missing a collision with the wall. Leaning down heavily against the counter in front of a large mirror, she slowly allowed herself to look back up into her reflection. Yes, it was definitely better that she'd avoided Kurt just then. There were too many things written on her face that she didn't want him to see. He didn't need to know just how much Rich's words had wounded her.

Kurt was stunned, to say the least. It had been awkward, to say the very least, being around Rich for the short time in which it had taken him to set both of them on edge. The way Jane had whipped around and darted out of Holding, turning away before he'd even caught sight of her face, made him wonder if she was bothered by what he'd said. Obviously, Rich had just been trying to get under their skin, and he was probably delighted at the prospect that it had worked.

Something about that idea – that Rich had said that Kurt was still in love with her, which Kurt knew that he'd said just to get a reaction out of them – made Kurt feel surprisingly protective of Jane. He found that his emotions were conflicted when it came to her these days. There was still a lot of leftover anger and resentment, and yet… he was surprisingly enraged by Rich's words because of the effect that it had had both on himself _and_ on Jane. Far more so than he would have expected.

 _Of course I'm not still in love with her. That's impossible. Was I_ _ **ever**_ _in love with her?_

 _You really have to ask that question?_ the voice in his head asked skeptically.

 _How would I know?_ he replied. _I'm not exactly the best judge of these things._

 _That's for sure,_ the voice said cynically, but didn't reply further.

He'd been just about to catch up with her in the hallway, which she'd been moving down even faster than usual, when suddenly she'd ducked into the women's bathroom. No, ducked was the wrong word. He hadn't been expecting the motion so he wasn't really watching. The door was on the right side of the hall and he'd been coming up on her left, when suddenly she'd swerved away from him and had almost appeared to _fall_ through the door.

For a few seconds he thought that she _had_ fallen, but when he'd looked up and seen that it was actually a bathroom, he'd decided that it couldn't have been an accident. Still, he wondered if she'd been actively trying to _get_ _away_ from him. That wasn't like her. Then again… based on how things had been between them lately and what Rich had just said… it suddenly seemed possible. But why would it bother her that much?

 _Why does it bother_ _ **you**_ _that much?_ the voice in his head asked curiously.

 _Because I know it's not true,_ he replied quickly.

 _Right,_ the voice pretended to agree. _Of course not._

He stood in the hall and attempted to ignore the sarcastic remarks from his own mind. What should he do, anyway? There were a few seconds when he had the impulse to go in after her, women's bathroom rules be damned, to see if she was alright.

 _Of course she's alright,_ he thought in the next second. _Why wouldn't she be alright? She knows how much Rich likes to stir up trouble. That's all he's doing, after all._

 _Isn't it?_

He began walking away slowly, down the hall, now lost in thought. _Well… of course that's all he's doing. Rich is just a pain in the ass who wants attention. Nothing more._

The voice in his head tried to voice a doubt about this, but he dismissed it before it could form.

 _It's fine,_ he told himself. _She's fine._

 _Keep telling yourself that,_ the voice in his head replied.


	8. Too Many To Count

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)**_

Even after all of this time, Jane still didn't like flying – unless she was the one at the controls. Even then she only liked it marginally better, and the problem with _those_ situations was that if she was standing in as a pilot, it usually meant that their lives were in danger. After all, she didn't remember having any training, much less any credentials, so she wouldn't have put herself into that situation unless there was no other choice.

However, despite her strong dislike of being in the air, she could recognize how flying was sometimes necessary. Today was one example – it was also the first time that she could remember that she'd ever gotten on a plane or a helicopter for a non-work related trip. It was amazing, really, that she'd gone this long without doing so, but even after Sandstorm had been dismantled, the world had always just seemed to need saving. Consequently, taking time off of work was just a luxury that she hadn't taken advantage of – not even after she had been told that she was now free to go wherever she wanted to. Really, the truth had been that she didn't want to go anywhere. At least… not without Kurt.

 _I'm doing this voluntarily?_ she asked herself in disbelief as she sat on the plane. _Why, again?_

The reason that she was voluntarily getting into an airplane when work wasn't demanding it of her squeezed her hand then. Kurt was sitting in the seat beside her, on her left, watching her carefully to try to assess how exactly she was doing. He knew that if he asked her, she'd simply mutter, "fine," like she always did. Since he knew exactly how much she disliked flying, he knew that she wasn't fine. He wasn't even going to give her the chance to lie.

" _I guess it's about control,"_ she'd told him once, as to why she was okay with being a pilot and not a passenger. He could understand that, all things considered. There were so many things in her life that had been, or were still, beyond her control, after all.

He'd pushed the armrest that separated their seats up and out of the way, so they could comfortably squeeze together – or, as comfortably as one could do so on an airplane. She was in the window seat, although the shade on the window was closed at the moment, and he was on the aisle. He'd told her that he'd chosen the side of the airplane that had only two seats on it so that this could be the case. After all, she had enough issues with flying, they didn't need to have to deal with squeezing close to strangers or with either of them being in a middle seat, on top of everything else.

Jane sat beside Kurt, reminding herself to breathe and taking slow, shaky breaths even though they had yet to leave the gate. In fact, passengers were still getting on the plane, so they weren't going to be leaving anytime soon. Somehow, this didn't make her feel any better.

"Hey, see those people?" Kurt asked, leaning towards her and pointing to the people stowing their bags in overhead compartments and looking for their seats. "They're still getting settled. We won't even move at all until everyone is buckled in. They make sure of that. Okay?"

She nodded, understanding what he was saying, but was still unable to calm down. It had meant a lot to her that he'd asked her to come along on this trip – the first time he was going out to Portland to visit Sarah and Sawyer since they'd moved out there more than two years ago – and while she was nervous about the part of the trip where they were actually _in_ Portland, she was most nervous about flying there and back.

With a sigh, he squeezed her hand again. Their forearms were lying together, their fingers intertwined, against his leg. Slowly, he lifted their hands together until the skin on the back of her hand just barely touched his lips, where he kissed it gently. He kept her hand pressed against his lips for several extra seconds before sliding it across his cheek. Not breaking contact, he rested the back of her hand against his right cheek. What she needed was for him to distract her, he knew. His options were limited here, but he would do his best. When it came to Jane, his instincts were usually right, anyway.

"Are you more or less nervous than on that first trip, to Michigan? When we went after Guerrero?" he asked. It wasn't just a question to distract her – suddenly he was genuinely curious.

Feeling her stomach flip flopping as he held her hand against his cheek, she couldn't help but smile, albeit nervously, trying to think back to that trip… the first time she could remember ever flying.

"I remember that…" she began slowly. She was fairly sure that she would never get tired of the novelty of using that phrase, of being able to say that she _remembered_ something, instead of always having a blank slate where her memory should be. Slowly, as time went on, she'd had the chance to say it more and more, as her bank of memories grew larger and larger, but the thrill never seemed to wear off. As for the things that she wished she _didn't_ remember… well, she was slowly getting better at pushing those aside.

On that flight the team had taken on the jet on the way to Michigan so long ago, Reade and Kurt had been sitting at the table, and Jane had been sitting in the seat beside Zapata, gripping the armrests for dear life. She'd hung on even tighter every time they'd felt even the slightest turbulence, and they'd flown through quite a bit of it.

"On the way there, I remember I was _terrified_. I think I had a death grip on the armrests," she recalled.

Kurt let their joined hands fall slowly from his cheek, coming to rest back on his leg.

"On the way back…" She took a deep breath then, remembering, as a smile crept onto her face. "…I guess it wasn't _as_ bad…"

"Oh yeah?" he asked in amusement. "I don't know, you seemed pretty scared to me." He grinned, but she knew that he wasn't making fun of her. No, he was simply stating a fact, and maybe teasing her _just a little_. Just the right amount.

Rolling her eyes at him, she shook her head. "Don't get me wrong," she added quickly, looking back at him, enjoying the laughter in his eyes and yet at the same time trying to give him a playful glare. However, she found that it was impossible to even pretend to be angry with him, because she was unable to stop herself from smiling. Suddenly she felt shy, remembering that moment between them and knowing from the look in his eyes that he was remembering it just as fondly. For a second she considered rethinking the words that had formed in her head, but decided to say them anyway. "On the way back, I was almost as terrified as the first time. But it was easier when you were sitting across from me…"

She watched his smile grow larger, and continued even as she felt herself becoming more and more self-conscious. "And when you leaned forward and… I mean, I felt like I could finally breathe when…" Even though she was having trouble articulating it, she remembered everything about that moment, down to the sparkle in his eyes as he'd managed to tease her and reassure her at the same time. Looking up at him now, she noticed that his eyes were sparkling the same way, and she wondered exactly what emotion the look on his face signified. "When you were holding onto me."

Now blushing more than just a little, she glanced away. She was surprisingly embarrassed to admit this to him, even now, and even though it would have been obvious to both of them at the time. There was just something about saying the words out loud, about admitting that even that long ago, he'd had such a strong effect on her. She loved that she could tell him things like that out loud now. It still felt like a novelty not to have to swallow them.

"Why do you think I'm doing that right now?" he asked, chuckling softly. "Well, besides the fact that I want to hold onto you as much as I possibly can?" He grinned then, and she just shook her head at him. He was like this sometimes – too sweet for words. They'd come a long way from their first meeting, and though it seemed strange to say it, they'd come an even longer way since the day almost a year after that, when they'd fought each other in a sort of grimy motel hallway cage match, after she'd escaped from the CIA. At neither of those points would she have imagined that they would have ended up here.

And yet, here they were. The path that they'd taken to get here felt like some sort of strange dream, or as if it had all happened in a different lifetime. None of it mattered.

Without another word, she leaned slightly forward and then moved closer to him, lying her head against his chest. His free arm – his left – wrapped around her, pulling her closer, while his right hand still held her left tightly. She knew that now that she was leaning against him, he would feel her uneasy breathing, and realize that she was shaking. There was a time when she would have held herself back from him specifically so that he didn't find this out. Now, however, she leaned into him, seeking comfort without a word.

He let go of her hand so that he could wrap his right arm around her as well. Pulling her tighter, he kissed the top of her head just as the plane shook slightly with the force required to push back from the gate. A few seconds later, he felt her flinch against him again, inhaling sharply as she realized that they were still moving.

"Sssshhhhh," he mumbled into her hair. "It's okay. We're fine. We're not even on the runway yet." His words only elicited a quiet groan.

As she felt him smooth her hair back, she tried to focus on that sensation alone. She hated that she was as scared as she was. After all, how many things did she face on a daily basis that would scare anyone else, but that she did without batting an eye? And yet for some reason, she couldn't even sit on an airplane _on the ground_ without hyperventilating.

She was breathing deeply, trying to focus on Kurt and not on her fear. As she leaned back against the seat, his left arm fell from around her, his hand coming to rest just above her knee. Shifting her head from his chest to his right shoulder, she tried to absorb the calm that he was trying hard to transfer to her. His right arm was still around her back against the seat, her own hands fidgeting nervously in her lap. When his left hand found hers, interlocking their fingers palm to palm and then bringing their hands back to rest on his leg together, she couldn't help but smile.

Slowly but deliberately, he moved his thumb around the piece of metal that circled her ring finger, complete with a sizeable – definitely not small, but by no means huge – sparkly stone. The ring was a new addition, and they were both still a little bit giddy with the novelty of its presence on her finger.

It had only been a few days since he'd asked her to marry him, so they were still in the process of telling people.

Unable to help herself, she stared at the gold band with the large green stone raised up from the center, the top of which was cut into a perfect square shape and held in place by a prong at each corner. He'd told her that it wasn't a traditional engagement ring, but she didn't care about that. Nothing about them was traditional, after all. To her, this was too perfect for words.

This was what he'd wanted, she supposed – for her to be distracted and to forget just how scared she was to be on the airplane. Feeling her smile intensify, she turned towards him once again to lean her forehead against his shoulder, kissing the cotton that covered the top of his arm where her face happened to land. As he had done with his lips against her hand, she hesitated there for a few seconds before turning back to lean the side of her head against him, as she had before. Once again admiring the sparkly ring that she still wasn't accustomed to wearing, she felt happiness bubbling up inside her. She'd gone through hell – more than once – to come out on the other side, and she still had trouble believing it. 

He turned to lean his face as close to hers as he could manage from his angle. "What was that for?" he asked in a whisper.

His thumb was moving back and forth across the back of the hand he was holding, and it gave her chills the same way as it had the very first time he'd done it. She could see that he was going out of his way to give her things to focus on besides just their surroundings, which only reinforced to her just how lucky she was – not that there had been any doubt.

"Just because," she mumbled back, turning her head towards him again but this time leaning her face up towards him and then waiting expectantly. With a chuckle, he leaned forward and kissed her, letting his face rest against hers. They had now made it to the runway – but she hadn't realized it yet. She remained focused on Kurt.

"I can't wait for us to go on a _real_ vacation," he mumbled, his face still resting against her, closing his eyes to imagine the scene in his head. "Somewhere warm. A beach? Bermuda, maybe…"

"Another vacation?" she asked in surprise. "That'll take… what? Ten years or so to find the time to take off work again?"

"Ooof, I hope not," he replied, sounding disappointed.

"And a beach? I hadn't pegged you as the sitting on the beach type," she told him thoughtfully. "I mean… when was the last time you sat _anywhere_ for more than ten minutes?"

"Very funny," he said, making a face at her. His expression then became thoughtful. "Actually, I'm in favor of anything that gets you into a bathing suit again," he replied softly. "So the beach seemed like the most likely bet." Suddenly she was blushing a deep red all over, her mouth open slightly in surprise, and she had a feeling that he could tell just from the heat she felt coming off her skin as he leaned against her. "Besides, we had fun at the beach last time, didn't we?" he added.

"Oh, it was definitely fun…" she agreed slowly. "So, you liked that bathing suit last time, did you?" she asked playfully, feeling him pull her just a little closer. Their long weekend at the beach in southern Virginia – which had _not_ required flying anywhere – back around the time they'd first gotten together, was far too long ago now. It was one of her favorite memories.

"Silly question," he growled near her ear, and she grinned hard. "I _told you_ how much I liked it."

It _had_ been a silly question, but she'd asked it on purpose. It was just too much fun hearing the answer. "I guess I _do_ remember that you said that…" she said, pretending to have to think about it. "But it's always nice to hear you say it again."

"As many times as you want," he told her sincerely.

"So… should I go shopping with Patterson again, then?" she added with a grin, leaning back to look up at him. "She seemed to be right on the money last time."

"Whatever works," he told her. "You could wear that same one, or… I'd also be happy to go with you… You need someone to give their opinion, right?"

"You know you'd have to wait _outside_ the changing room, right?" she asked, suppressing a laugh when his face fell dramatically.

"Very disappointing," he muttered dramatically. "But I'd still go with you."

"You're so sweet," she told him. Sighing contentedly, she looked around for the first time in a while as if something was suddenly different, then ever so carefully moved toward the window on the far side of her seat. Lifting the screen slowly, as if she was scared of what she might find behind it, then gasping in surprise. She'd forgotten that they were even on an airplane, and she was surprised to see that they were now in the air, high above the ground.

 _When did_ _ **that**_ _happen? And how did I not notice?_ she wondered.

"Hey," she said, confused, "When did we…?" The grin on his face told her all she needed to know. "You're good," she told him, shaking her head.

"You're _just_ noticing that now?" he asked, pretending to be shocked.

"Actually, I realize it _constantly,_ including now, which must be about the thousandth time… yes," she replied. "I can't help it if you keep outdoing yourself."

"And I intend to continue," he assured her, squeezing her hand. She was actually smiling now, only looking stricken for a few seconds at a time when the turbulence occasionally jolted them. After each time she was able to relax again as his grip on her helped her remember to breathe and the plane stopped shaking beneath them.

Something caught her eye then, and she wondered how she hadn't noticed it before. To her fascination, the intense sunlight from the window was hitting her ring and throwing beams of light in every direction.

"Wow!" she breathed in awe. "Look at that!"

She heard him chuckle at her delight, but couldn't tear her eyes away from the way the light bounced off of her ring. Every time she moved, the thousands of tiny specks of light moved right along with her, shifting faster than she could keep track of them. It looked magical, even though she knew that it was simply science that was causing it. She made a mental note to ask Patterson for an explanation another time. For now, she simply enjoyed the fact that she had one more reason to stare at her ring. It was amazing to her that such a small thing could be so completely mesmerizing.

Finally able to look away from her favorite new toy a few minutes later, she turned back to see him watching her in amusement. "You must be excited to see Sarah and Sawyer," she told him, relieved that she could now think about something besides how terrified she was. She still wouldn't say that she was comfortable flying, but the fact that she'd been able to forget that she was in an airplane for a little while seemed to be a good sign that she was beginning to conquer her fear. Just knowing this had helped to take away the bulk of her nervousness.

"Of course," he replied with a nod and a smile. "And besides spending time with them, I'm also especially excited to spend time with _you_ when we're not exchanging gunfire with someone, diffusing bombs, or otherwise saving the world. _Not_ that I haven't always enjoyed doing _those_ things with you, as well," he added with a grin.

She couldn't help but smile at his sense of humor. Anyone else would have wanted to forget all the things they'd been through. After all, how many times had one or both of them almost died in the time that they'd known each other? The short answer was 'far too many to count.' And yes, they'd been through lots of things that weren't exactly fun to remember… but since she knew first-hand what it was like _not_ to remember, she was grateful for even her painful memories of him. Besides, they'd made it this far, and that counted for a lot.

As scary as those near death experiences had been, they had helped bring them closer together as well. Many different images flashed in her mind then, some slipping by before she could even process them, and some playing out at regular speed, as if she were reliving them all over again. These were the things that she loved to remember, despite the danger they been in.

" _You should stay here in case Casey wakes up. I'll draw 'em away." He'd handed her his gun, only minutes after telling her he was_ _ **not**_ _going to give her a gun. "What are you doing?" she'd asked him. "You're right, you need a gun," he told her seriously. "What about you?" she'd asked. "Don't worry about me. I'll get another one." And then he'd run_ _ **toward**_ _the sound of gunfire, not away from it.  
_  
 _"Jane... I'm sorry that I brought you here, all right? I chose this life, you didn't. You never had a choice," he'd said when they'd thought they would have to crash the plane they were on to prevent it from launching tiny satellites that would locate and disable the US Military's GPS system._

No longer feeling as nervous about flying, Jane felt a fresh wave of nerves wash over her at the thought of their trip to see Kurt's only remaining family. She already knew them, of course, and yet… this time was still a big deal. This wasn't just "I'd like you to meet my friend, Jane." _Not_ that it had been anywhere near that simple, of course. She'd been Taylor, or so they'd thought, and Sarah had accepted her as their childhood friend. And then suddenly she wasn't Taylor, but a terrorist who'd been sent to impersonate Taylor and use her brother, and Jane knew from Kurt's reluctant admissions that Sarah had been at least as angry with her as he had been himself. The difference, of course, was that this was the first time the two women had been face to face since the days when everyone had thought Jane was Taylor, and even with Kurt's reassurances, Jane worried about how things would go between them now that the truth was known.

Knowing that they'd see her in a few days, Jane and Kurt had saved the surprise of their engagement to tell Sarah in person.

 _Either it will make her deliriously happy, or it'll make her hate me even more,_ Jane couldn't help but think to herself, as she had been for the past few days.

As if knowing that her thoughts on the subject of Sarah were churning, he suddenly asked, "And how do _you_ feel about spending so much time with Sarah and Sawyer?" They were going to be visiting them for six days, after all, which was a lot of family time with someone else's family. Then again, compared to Jane's family, well… She really couldn't complain about his. At least they weren't _terrorists_.

Looking down at their hands where they sat clasped together on his leg, she smiled nervously. "I'm…" She sighed, shaking her head when she didn't find the right words. "It's going to be great," she told him, as if she'd made up her mind on the subject. She continued to stare at the ring on her finger, willing herself to believe what she'd just said. The last time she'd seen Sarah, after all, things had been very different.

She knew that her words had come out sounding more determined than convinced, and that the expression on her face was uncertain. With his track record for reading her, she knew that he wasn't fooled for a second. "Sarah's excited to spend more time with you, you know, and to get to know you," he told her soothingly. "And she's happy to have another girl in the family."

Jane forced herself to smile and nod her head, but she didn't look up. Even now, after so much time, she still worried about Sarah's opinion of her. She knew that it had been, well… _less than positive_ for a long time, after everything had happened the way it had. How could she possibly blame Sarah for wanting to protect her brother from any more heartache than he had already suffered in his life? The short answer was that she couldn't – she wanted to protect Kurt from the same thing. Her mouth was a tight line as she continued to worry.

Kurt had insisted that Sarah understood, but Jane still worried – mainly because it was obviously hard for Sarah to know from the other side of the country just how much things had changed between the two of them. She knew that Kurt had told his sister enough of the bad things that had happened between them, even if it wasn't all of it, after all. Of course, she and Kurt knew how they had slowly worked their way back to being friends, to trusting each other again, but Sarah only knew what Kurt might have told her. Even if he had come out and told her _exactly_ what had happened to bring them back together – which he couldn't have done even if he'd wanted to, because of the classified nature of their jobs – Jane didn't think that Sarah would quite understand. After all, if she couldn't even quite put it all into words herself, so how could she expect it to make sense to someone who wasn't her or Kurt?

Kurt had done what he could to reassure her, telling Jane about his conversations with Sarah and emphasizing that his sister wasn't angry with her any more. On the contrary, he said that she sounded genuinely excited to spend time with her. According to Kurt, Sarah had said so in exactly those words. Recently, Jane had overheard his side of some of their calls, but even so… Deep down, she still worried about what Sarah thought of her, worried that she would think that Jane was a danger to her brother. Jane would have gone to the ends of the Earth to keep from hurting him, if she'd thought that that was even a possibility.

"I think she understands, Jane," he assured her softly. "At least, as much as she can with what I could tell her. Which was not everything… but more than I would tell anyone else… besides you, of course." Jane couldn't help but smile weakly at the mention of her special place in his life. She didn't think she could ever hear those words too much. But her smile lasted only a few seconds before disappearing again.

"She took over the job of worrying about me when my mom left, so… it's just a habit," Kurt continued. "But when she sees how happy we are…" He let the rest of the sentence go and simply shook his head. "That's all she wants."

"I know, it's just…" she took a deep breath. "I gave her a lot of reasons _not_ to trust me with her only brother," she whispered. "I'd understand if she just… _can't_."

"Jane… You have nothing to prove," he assured her. "You've saved my life too many times to count, and in every way. She and I have talked about you _a lot_ – you know how she is when she won't let something go. And trust me when I say, she has grilled me extensively on that topic. Thank goodness for my FBI training, or I may not have made it through, because she's a _tough_ interrogator…" She could feel him looked at her, and she could hear the sincerity in his voice, even without looking up at him. "My answers must have been satisfactory, or she wouldn't have been okay with you coming along. That in itself should tell you something," he insisted. "Because Sarah Weller does not agree to things she is not okay with."

"Maybe she just wants to keep a closer eye on me with her only brother?" she suggested. That made him chuckle, but he stopped quickly when she glanced at him, her face completely serious. The change in his expression suggested to her than he'd only just realized that she was _really_ worried about this.

"Hey… There's nothing to worry about," he told her gently. "I promise."

"If I was her… _I_ would hate me," Jane whispered. "If someone did that to _my_ brother-" Suddenly she stopped and inhaled sharply as her brain finished processing the words that had come out of her mouth. She had done something _else_ to her own brother, something arguably worse. She'd _erased his memory_ … and she knew that it was going to come back to haunt her, sooner or later.

Her own words hung in the air, silently and yet screaming in her ears. Thanks to the mix of surprise and pain in her chest at the thought of what she'd done, she couldn't breathe again immediately, feeling as though the wind had been knocked out of her. When she did, it was cautiously, her breath shaky both going in and going out again.

"Jane…" he whispered, and then again, louder, when she didn't reply. She could hear a hint of worry in his voice. "She doesn't hate you, okay? I promise you that. You don't have to prove anything – to her or to anyone else. You just have to be yourself." Slowly, she nodded, still looking at her lap. She was not sure if she believed it, only that she desperately _wanted to_.

"And as for Roman…" He looked down at their joined hands and shook his head, and she knew without him saying anything that he felt remorse at the way things had had to go. They both knew that there really wasn't anything anyone could do or say to make it better.

"I know," she said without looking up, feeling his squeeze her hand.

"We were up early today," he said then in an obvious attempt to change the subject. "I think it's time for a nap. What do you say?" They _had_ gotten up early to be at the airport – not that they weren't both accustomed to getting up early already – and even if it wasn't strictly necessary, there was something comforting about having an excuse to cuddle up to him just then… _Not that it's even possible to get much closer to him than I already am in this cramped airplane seat_ , she thought.

Turning her head and leaning her face up towards him expectantly, she only had to wait a few seconds before he tilted his head down to an angle from which he could kiss her. "Sounds like a plan," she whispered when they both leaned back slightly just watching each other for a few extra seconds. Loosening their seatbelts just a little so they could turn in their chairs, they turned to face the window. She leaned back against him, drawing strength from his strength, as she always did.

He'd already taken two blankets out of the overhead compartment, and now he let go of her hand reluctantly so that he could unfold one of them and drape it over the front of her, then did the same with a second one over his left shoulder and around his back. Now under the blankets, both of his arms slid around her tightly and she couldn't help but sigh. Nothing else mattered, and it was going to be okay.

His chin sat on her left shoulder, her right shoulder leaned against the seat. "That's better," he whispered, now able to say it right into her ear thanks to the better angle.

"Mmmmm…" she sighed, already feeling herself getting sleepy. She didn't fight it as her eyes closed, just focusing on the feeling of his arms around her.

"Jane," he whispered, just before she succumbed to sleep. "I lov…"

Before she could hear the rest of it, the words that she knew that she would never quite get used to, her eyes were open and she was once again staring at the bare wall across the room. It had been another dream, and it was over once again.

For several minutes she simply couldn't bring herself to move, as if somehow if she could wish hard enough for it, what she'd just seen in her dream would become reality.

 _I should have known that it was a dream all along,_ she told herself. _The idea that I could be forgiven for what I did… that should have given it away._

The ache in her chest that always accompanied waking up from these dreams intensified, and she closed her eyes again, taking a slow deep breath in an attempt to push through it. After all, there was no other choice. As much as she felt like she wanted to just curl up into a ball and stay that way indefinitely, there was still work to do. She had to take down Sandstorm first, and _then_ she could simply disappear into nothingness. There was no way to completely make up for what she had done, but she at least owed it to the team to capture the people who had wronged them, the ones that _she_ had done so much to help.

 _You mean_ _ **Remi**_ _,_ the voice in her head corrected her.

 _It doesn't even matter,_ she thought. _Either way, I'm guilty._ It was a terrible feeling.

Slowly, like she did every morning when she woke up, she forced herself to stand up and stretch, to put one foot in front of the other, to go about her routine. What else could she do? She knew her mission, and she was not going to stop until she accomplished it.

Later that day, amid the usual chaos, she found herself in the car with Weller. Strangely enough this time they also had Keaton – the man who had _tortured_ her for three months – in the back seat as their passenger, but somehow she ignored him. It was bittersweet, even with their unwelcome passenger there, being beside Kurt in the SUV. It made her remember back to the beginning, to other, less tense times when they'd been in the car together. So much had changed, so much had gone wrong since then, and she couldn't help but feel a regret over it all that was so strong she could taste it.

She remembered one of those long ago conversations they'd had in the car, the time when he'd told her that whoever she had been before didn't matter, that he knew that she was a good person. More than ever, she wished that she could rewind to those times, that she could go back and make different choices, and that she could have actually turned out to _be_ that good person that he used to see when he had looked at her. Even if Remi had made bad choices, she, _Jane_ , could have done the right thing. The fact that she'd done the wrong thing for what she'd thought were the right reasons was irrelevant. She knew for certain that he didn't see a good person when he looked at her now – and neither did she, for that matter.

 _None of it was malicious, though!_ the voice in her head insisted. _It's not the same! You were trying to help them… Kurt… Roman… Everything keeps backfiring, but you've done nothing but tried to help them!_

 _Maybe I should stop trying to help people then,_ she thought. She wasn't a quitter, but she couldn't seem to get anything right.

Take Roman, for example. Now that she'd "zipped" him – for his own good, of course – all she could do was worry about him, and the FBI seemed to hate her for it. It didn't matter that she'd felt like she had no other choice, that if she hadn't erased his memory, one of them would have killed the other. She'd wanted to tell Roman the truth afterwards, that it had been her who'd done it, and that she'd been trying to protect him from their horrible past. But Weller and Nas had adamantly argued against doing so. She saw their point, and though she hated to stay lying _again_ , she had told her brother that it had been Shepherd who'd erased his memory.

 _Another lie._ Now, of course, she was terrified, imagining what Roman would do when he found out that it _hadn't_ been Shepherd who'd stolen his memories, but his own sister. She knew that it would destroy the trust that she was trying to build with him. She'd just gone down this path with Kurt, after all, and the lies – _her_ lies – had destroyed everything between _them_.

"What happens when Roman finds out that I lied to him?" she asked Weller, there beside him in the car. "That I was the one that wiped his memory? He'll never trust me again."

There wasn't much Kurt could say by way of reassurances, since he knew that she was probably right. He didn't think that he would have made the decision to zip Roman, had he been in Jane's place, but if there was one thing he did know, it was that Jane had done what she'd done because she cared. She had thought it was the right thing to do, had been _trying_ to help both the FBI _and_ Roman, even though zipping him took away the answers that the FBI desperately needed – at least in the short term.

It was a relief to feel that kind of certainty about her again, he suddenly realized, even though he reminded himself that maybe he should know better than to trust _anything_ about her after how things had happened the first time around.

 _But you know_ _ **why**_ _she lied,_ the voice in his head would repeat insistently, over and over. _You_ _ **know**_ _that she didn't do it maliciously._ To his dismay, the voice in his head was slowly breaking down his resolve never to trust her again.

Though he hadn't wanted to, lately he'd been starting to see the old Jane again – the one he had thought he'd _known_ , the one he had _trusted_ when he apparently shouldn't have, before everything had fallen apart. Before he'd discovered that she hadn't been Taylor, and that she'd been lying to him – though _not_ about being Taylor. That, she had actually believed. So he was either once again blinded by his feelings for her ( _I don't have feelings for her!_ he insisted in his head), which may or may not be clouding his judgement, or he was seeing the "real" Jane. The question was… which one was it? He knew he was playing with fire, but he couldn't help himself. She was the flame and he was the moth.

He didn't know how he was supposed to feel about it all. His head told him that he was too smart to fall for it again, to fall for _her_ again, but in his heart, he had to admit it to himself… no matter what she had done, and how much she had hurt him, deep down he knew that she wasn't a bad person. That was what made the things she had done so much harder to reconcile. How could he stay angry with her when she'd been willing to sacrifice her own well-being for his safety? When, after he'd arrested her without giving her a chance to explain, she'd endured CIA torture rather than tell them _anything._ That was the Jane that he knew.

"I'd say getting your memory wiped was the best thing that ever happened to you," Kurt told her. "Think about who you were and who you are now. You got a chance to start over. And now, Roman does." Even _Kurt_ was surprised at the words that came out of his mouth, but he realized that he meant them.

"This morning, you said Roman wasn't like me." She glanced at him, both wishing for reassurance and knowing that she wouldn't get it from him. That right had been forfeited long ago. And yet… she couldn't stop herself from hoping.

He had no answers for her, as usual. "All I know is Roman is alive because of you. Whatever hope that he has left is a gift that you gave him," he told her seriously.

He looked at her then, not just _glanced_ at her as he'd done twice already, but for a few seconds, he really looked at her. Though he wanted to tell her that it would be alright, chances were that it wouldn't. Jane was right – eventually Roman was going to find out what had happened, one way or another. Kurt wouldn't pretend to guess what the ultimate outcome would be, but, despite his initial frustration with her for erasing her brother's memories and with them, the information about Sandstorm that they so desperately needed, he understood. Unlike everyone else at the FBI, he didn't see her actions as reckless, selfish or stupid. At least not anymore. Little by little, he'd been finding that his anger with her was disappearing.

He watched her for several seconds as he considered all of this before he had to look back at the road again. His feelings for her had never been simple, but, complicated as they had always been, they had also never been _this_ complicated.

She'd kept her eyes on him this time instead of looking away, and when he looked back at her after he finished telling her that any hope that Roman had left was a gift that she'd given him, it felt like _Kurt_ had given _her_ a gift. That reassurance that she told herself that she didn't deserve anymore? She was surprised to find that it was there, not just in his words, but in his eyes. She'd made herself forget just how much she used to depend on it, because it had hurt so much when she'd seen anger and resentment instead. And now suddenly, that reassurance and understanding was beginning to reappear again.

Continuing to look at him after he'd turned back to the road, she couldn't help but feel strangely lighter than she had a second before. Those words were more than she'd ever thought that she would get from him again. No, maybe things would never be the way they had been in the beginning, but they also weren't the way they'd been when she'd first come _back_ to the FBI, either.

Maybe, just _maybe_ , despite what she'd told herself so many times, there really was good in her… and maybe he could still see it.


	9. Any Time Now

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)**_

Jane sat at the small table by the window, her favorite one, from which she could watch people walk by. She picked up her coffee, holding it in front of her lips for a few seconds before actually taking a sip, enjoying both the smell and the warmth against her face. It wasn't often that she had time to appreciate such small details of such simple things – more often than not, she drank coffee the way she did most things – in a hurry, on the way to somewhere, after far too little sleep.

When she did get the rare chance to just sit, however, this coffee shop was one of the places that she liked to sit. Another of her favorite places was down by the water, in a little park that Kurt had introduced her to on the first day she'd met him – but when it was cold outside, like it was today, she opted for indoors. Watching people was much more enjoyable when she wasn't freezing.

She was lost in thought, and not really paying attention to the people coming in and out of the coffee shop, only the people walking by on the street, so she was surprised when suddenly she heard Kurt speaking to her.

"Hey," he said in a low voice. "I thought I might find you here." There was a smile that she could hear in his voice even before one that she could see spread shyly across his face.

"Oh yeah?" she asked, grinning right back at him and feeling even happier in that moment than she had in the previous one. "Is that why you're here?"

He looked back at her innocently, shaking his head. "Oh, no," he replied, shaking his head, "I just needed coffee." The glimmer in his eyes told her otherwise.

"Right, of course," she said with a knowing smile. "Well, go get your coffee then. I'm just going to keep watching people here while I wait for you."

"Oh, you're going to wait for me?" he asked, and she could hear a hint of teasing in his tone. When he didn't move, she just shook her head. For long enough that he had clearly forgotten that he'd just said he was going to get coffee, he just continued to stare at Jane. It was so adorable, she almost couldn't bear to point out to him that he wasn't moving. After watching him watch her for almost a minute, she picked up her mug again and took another sip, not taking her eyes off of him the whole time. The motion seemed to break the spell he was under, and she saw color rush to his cheeks as he looked down and chuckled.

"Right… coffee," he mumbled as Jane laughed softly. Now instead of watching the people walk by outside, her eyes focused on one particular person _inside_.

Not even five steps away from the table, he looked back and chuckled when he saw her watching him intently, his smile widening. He nodded at her, then turned to walk toward the short line of people waiting to order at the counter.

Jane kept watching him, and noticed that he glanced back at her quite a few times, smiling at her each time. A few times, for a minute or two she didn't have a clear view of him in the crowd, and she was surprised at how impatient it made her as she waited for him to come back into view.

She swore that ordering coffee had never before taken as long as it was taking just then, because time seemed to have slowed to a crawl since he'd gone to the counter. After watching him glance back at her time and time again, she saw him finally make it to the front of the line and order, and then he stood and waited it. Surely, any minute now she'd see him turn and walk back to her table.

The next thing she knew, however, she was distracted by someone far less enjoyable to watch. As if he'd appeared out of nowhere, suddenly there was a man who was distinctly _not_ Kurt standing in front of her table and staring down at her, smiling at her lasciviously and interrupting the tranquility she had been enjoying. He was, if she had to guess, shorter than her by at least three inches, more than a little bit overweight, with long stringy hair tied back in a ponytail. When he smiled at her, she couldn't help but notice that one of his front teeth was missing, and she tried hard not to cringe at the overall effect.

 _Okay Kurt, any time now…_ she thought impatiently.

But this newcomer put himself directly in her field of vision, and it was all Jane could do not to roll her eyes. Of course, she wasn't afraid of him – she could easily defend herself, and this guy didn't exactly look physically threatening – she just didn't want to have to deal with him, especially in a crowded place like this. He appeared to be the type of guy who she'd already encountered many times, the ones who took her plethora of tattoos as an invitation to approach her and make lewd comments.

She'd really been enjoying her morning, and she didn't want to be rude… but the men who made those kinds of advances were pretty downright rude themselves, and they didn't usually take kindly to being brushed off, so it was difficult to extract herself from those situations without having to make more of a scene than she wanted. After all, she just wanted to sit where she was and drink her coffee.

"May I join you?" the man asked, the look in his eyes resembling a wild animal looking at its prey.

"No, you may not," Jane replied flatly, attempting to look around him, in the direction of the counter. She'd momentarily lost sight of Kurt in the crowd. Not that she _needed_ his help to get rid of this guy, of course, but it would be easier to do without making a scene if she didn't have to try to do it alone.

"Awww, come on, baby, don't be like that," the man whined. "You know you want it."

"I'm sorry, I want _what,_ exactly?" Jane asked him curtly, the look on her face now a very focused glare. The man must not have been very good at taking hints, because he began to sit down across from her. If he knew what was good for him, he would have walked away, of course, and probably _should_ have felt as though he was about to be either melted or set on fire if he'd been paying attention. That was how intense the look on her face was. But he was undeterred.

"Oh, _you_ know what I mean," the man said, now seated, and, Jane was fairly sure from the way he was looking at her that he was undressing her with his eyes. "So, how many tats you got under those clothes, anyway, kitten?"

She was thankful for the cold weather, because just then the only ones showing were on her neck, her hands, and inside the neckline of her shirt, which wasn't especially low. The very idea of what was going on in this man's head made her shudder.

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave me alone," she told him evenly, looking directly at him, stone-faced.

"Awww, baby, you don't mean that, I know you don't," he protested.

"Actually I do," she replied without hesitation. "I mean every word. And I want you to _leave me the hell alone._ "

Kurt arrived at the table at that moment, coffee in hand, having managed to catch Jane's last warning to the stranger over the buzz of the crowd. Instantly, he went into protective mode. Though he knew very well that Jane was more than capable of handling the jerk on her own, as he had told her many times, just because she _could_ do something, that didn't mean that she _had_ to.

If there was one thing that a person should _not_ do in front of Kurt, it was bother Jane. Anyone who knew the two of them knew that. Kurt had a few different options at that moment, Jane would realize later in amusement, and he chose the one that was by far the least confrontational of them.

Pretending not to even notice the man, he moved around the left side of the table to the bench where she was sitting, mumbling, "Sorry that took me so long, babe."

Sliding in close to her on her right, still without even glancing in the other man's direction, he put his coffee on the table and slid his left arm around her shoulders along the back of the bench, drawing her closer. Then as Jane watched in surprise, Kurt leaned his face toward hers without any hint of hesitation, looking her directly in the eyes.

And then, as if this was some other timeline in which his action was perfectly normal, after a silent communication with her that lasted half a second he was kissing her, as if they were _not_ in the middle of a public place – which they were, of course – and as if it was something that they did all the time – which it wasn't. The last time he'd kissed her had been in the locker room, what felt like a million years ago. And yet… here they were, lips pressed together. While she was surprised, she was certainly not complaining.

Indeed, Jane suddenly wondered why this _wasn't_ something they did all the time… because in the seconds since he'd started kissing her, every cell in her body had immediately started tingling. And no, she didn't remember kissing anyone else besides Oliver and Oscar, but this was… No, not only was there was simply nothing to compare this to, there weren't even adequate words to describe it. It was so much better than anything she had ever experienced before, it rendered her time with the other two men completely irrelevant – not she'd had allusions that either of them were right for her.

Realizing almost immediately what Kurt was doing, she almost laughed in the middle of the kiss. After all, this was certainly the more fun approach to solving her problem, and she never would have thought of it. Instead of focusing on her surprise, however, she decided to just enjoy it. After all, Kurt was _kissing her_ , which he hadn't done in a very long time. The man who had unknowingly prompted the kiss was now staring open-mouthed at them from across the table, his face twisted in a combination of anger and disbelief that was completely lost on the two of them, since their eyes were both closed and they were intensely focused on each other.

When they finally pulled back for air a minute later, breathing harder than they'd expected, she opened her eyes slowly to find herself looking directly into Kurt's face, across which there was a very definite smile forming. Jane felt herself blushing quickly, and she glanced to her left, across the table, where the man who hadn't wanted to take no for an answer had been only moments ago. Apparently he had finally departed at some point, so she slowly turned back towards Kurt, her eyes down so that she was staring at the front of his shirt as shyness suddenly overtook her.

 _The man is gone, so… now what?_ she wondered. _Does Kurt regret what he just did?_ She was suddenly afraid to look at him, much less ask him, for fear of the answer.

Now that the man was gone, she really expected that he would move back to a more customary distance. After all, his goal had been accomplished. Things had been comfortable between them lately, for which she was eternally grateful considering how much they had worked through over the months since she'd been dragged back to the FBI, but they had certainly not been cozy enough that he would have sat this close to her, with his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close the way he was. No, those were part of their past, before the lies had been discovered. Before the truth had come out about Oscar and Mayfair and Carter and Daylight and Taylor Shaw. Back when it had been obvious to everyone but them that there had been something between them.

When he didn't move away from her, however, instead sitting still, seeming perfectly comfortable where he was, she had to wonder. What did this mean? She felt him brush his fingers slowly against her left arm, and it reminded her so much of _before_ – before the lies, before everything, when things had seemed less complicated between them – that she decided to risk it. Slowly, she looked up at him, unsure what to expect, but afraid that she would see regret on his face.

However, what she saw in his expression was uncertainty that seemed to mirror her own, and suddenly she wondered if he thought _she_ regretted what had just happened. Of course, that couldn't be farther from the truth, but she was unable to find words to tell him that, as overwhelmed as she was. She felt her own uncertainty pushing her mouth into a frown, even as she told herself that she didn't think that she had anything to worry about. Kurt had never kissed her and not meant anything by it, she reminded herself.

 _But this time was different,_ she protested in her head.

"What's wrong, Jane?" he asked her quietly, reaching up his right hand to slowly push a strand of hair behind her ear. Even at that slight touch, her face turned so that her cheek brushed the side of his hand, leaning into it. His hand, in turn, paused in mid-air, as if he didn't want to lose the contact. For that she was grateful, because all she could think was that _she_ didn't want to lose it.

"I just…" she started in a whisper, then shaking her head against his hand. For a second she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then opened them again, determined to speak. He was watching her expectantly, and she forced herself to complete her thought.

 _Consequences be damned,_ she thought.

"I missed this." There, she'd said it.

Just that moment, she had begun to understand the term _heartache_ in a new way, because instead of feeling _heartbroken,_ a feeling with which she was more than familiar, this time her chest actually ached with a happiness mixed with longing for what she already _knew_ she wanted, and had simply never thought that she could actually _have._

"I guess I shouldn't let myself get used to it, though," she added as an afterthought, her voice turning sad.

He tilted his head and looked at her curiously. "Why not?" he asked softly. It only made her chest ache more that he was being so sweet. But even so, everything about this scared her, and she just stared at him then, speechless.

 _What is he trying to say, anyway?_ she wondered.

"Well, I mean… I don't know if… What do you…?" The words didn't want to come out of her mouth in coherent thoughts, much less complete sentences.

"What do I... what?" he asked her, the tone of his voice suggesting that he knew exactly what she was asking him.

Now she was really and truly flustered, especially because she had a very strong feeling that he knew what she was asking him, but that he just wanted to hear her say it. Looking down, she shook her head, dismissing the thought and feeling that familiar sensation of the bottom of her stomach dropping out, leaving her slightly nauseous. She just couldn't bring herself to say the words out loud, even though they thundered in her head.

When she heard him chuckle, her brow creased in confusion and once again, she looked up at him slowly, almost in annoyance.

 _What in the world could be_ _ **funny**_ _?_

"I guess neither of us is too good at spitting out what we're thinking, even after all this time," he observed. "You'd think we'd have learned by now. But we're both so damned stubborn…" Jane just continued to watch him, her expression softening, but her stomach still knotted tightly. Now smiling at her knowingly, he continued. "Alright, I'll go first. I think…" He paused then, as if considering what to say. Biting her lip, she waited impatiently for his next words.

 _Is he doing this on purpose? Why isn't he saying anything?_

"I think I'm done letting things come between us," he said evenly, smiling at her. Suddenly, she felt the warmth in his eyes wash over her, pulling her closer to him – or maybe that was just the arm around her shoulders tugging her closer. Or maybe it was both.

Not quite sure she was hearing him right, she paused and waited to see if he was going to elaborate. Surely, she was dreaming. This wasn't actually _happening_ … was it?

"So… what does that mean?" she asked quietly a few seconds later, when she regained the power of speech. He hadn't elaborated, and she desperately needed him to explain further.

"That means," he replied, his smile growing wider, "I think that we should do what we just did a lot more often."

"Which part?" she asked, the corners of her mouth just barely turning up as, even though she hesitated to let herself believe what she was hearing, she couldn't help but smile and make a joke. After all, he wasn't the only one who wanted to hear the words.

It wasn't that she didn't believe him, of course. It was just that after all she'd been through, letting herself feel _too_ happy felt like too much of a risk.

"That part where I kissed you," he whispered, leaning his face towards her again. "Like this." He kissed her again then, but this time as less of a performance and more of what she might have expected their first kiss after overcoming so much heartache to have been. Slow, gentle, and _slightly_ more appropriate for the fact that they were out in public – though not entirely G rated.

While the twinkle had been back in his eyes when he looked at her, even at work, in all the time since their relationship had been basically 'reset,' they hadn't gotten past acting like close friends up to now. And now, suddenly… she knew that this was what had been missing, all because they were both so stubborn and so hesitant.

 _It's about time,_ the voice in her head commented, which made her smile slowly, even before they drew apart again.

When they did move back from each other, it was by less than a foot, and they looked into each other's eyes steadily, almost not blinking. It was as if they were trying to communicate something important that couldn't be said with words. 

"What?" he finally asked her, making her wonder just how much of what she was thinking he could read in her face.

"It's just… it's scary," she whispered, and he looked at her in surprise.

Fanning his fingers across her cheek, where his right hand still rested, he smiled at her sadly. "What is, Jane?" he whispered back. She couldn't help but notice how calm he looked, and she wondered how he did it.

"Happiness," she whispered, and she suddenly found herself fighting against the feeling that her face was going to crumple and that she would be overwhelmed by tears.

Immediately his face was filled with concern, and he leaned forward to kiss her forehead. "It doesn't have to be," he whispered back, leaning the bridge of his nose against her forehead for a few seconds, then pulling back to look at her. "Okay?" His hand moved from her cheek up to the back of her neck, squeezing gently, and she felt tears slipping out of the corners of her eyes as they closed of their own free will. "I know my words might not mean much, after everything…" He trailed off when she began shaking her head emphatically, leaning into him as he pulled his arm tighter around her in a one armed hug.

"Don't say that. That's never been true," she insisted.

"But I guess maybe that's part of the problem, isn't it?" he said quietly. "Because too many of them have been hurtful." When she shook her head, trying to insist that he was wrong, he countered with a question. "Then why," he asked, "Can you believe the bad things and not the good?" He was watching her intensely, and once again she looked away, avoiding his eyes.

"I guess…" she replied slowly, not looking up, but instead staring down at his right hand, which he had moved to her lap, where her hands sat. His hand was clasped over her left, sitting on her knee. "…Maybe because I know how badly it hurts to lose everything. To lose _you_. I can't… I can't go through that again. If I let myself feel that happy…" She shook her head, unable to finish her sentence. Her voice had barely been a whisper by the end, and she wasn't even sure it had been loud enough for him to hear. Suddenly her chest simply ached too much at the memory of what had happened between them before for her to go on.

She felt him squeeze her left hand with his right, his left arm around her shoulder pulling tighter. "Jane," he said quietly, searching for the right words. Of course, words were not his specialty, so he finished with simply, "It's not going to happen again. I promise."

More than anything, she wanted to believe it. When she finally looked up at his face there was sincerity there, and the ache in her chest abated slightly. _Maybe_ it really would be okay.

Nodding slightly, she slowly exhaled the breath she'd only just realized that she was holding. "Thank you for… helping me get rid of that guy," she mumbled after simply looking into his eyes for a few minutes, her smile very slowly returning to her face.

"Oh that was completely my pleasure," he told mischievously. "But wait, are you saying thank you for the rescue, or the kiss itself? Just so I'm clear."

"Oh, um, uh…" she faltered, her face about to break open from the grin that had just spread across it. "Both?"

He'd already been beaming at her, but now he smiled even harder. She hadn't even known that it was possible for him to look as happy as he did just then. He leaned towards her again, but this time just leaning his forehead against hers. "Good answer," he whispered.

Moving her forehead slowly from side to side, she reveled in the feeling of her skin moving against his, as innocent as it was. It was too good to be true. What did they say about things that were too good to be true? That they probably _weren't_ true. Well, this one was.

"So, I'm just curios. How long would it have taken you to kiss me without that very aggressive guy's, uh… _encouragement_?" she asked him with a grin.

"You could have kissed _me,_ you know," he replied, slightly indignantly.

"If I kiss you right now, will that make up for it?" she asked thoughtfully.

Pretending to think it over for a second, he finally nodded as if he was doing her a favor. "If you insist," he told her.

"Maybe we should go somewhere else, though," she suggested, leaning her face close to his but not quite making contact. And then, in a whisper, she added, "The people here are probably tired of seeing us kiss."

"Fair enough," he replied in a low voice. "One for the road?" His eyes beseeched her, and she found that he looked so adorable, she couldn't say no to him. No, actually it was more that she didn't _want_ to say no to him. Leaning forward, she gave him a tiny peck on the lips, pulling back to look into the furrowed brow of a disappointed Kurt.

"That's just a preview," she told him, "Come on. Let's go."

Standing up and taking both of their coffees, almost untouched, off of the table, he worked his way around the table and took a few steps to give her room to get out as well, before stopping and turning to wait for her. When she caught up, she took her coffee from him so that one of his hands was free, and she reached for that free hand, holding it as she wove behind him between the tables to the door of the coffee shop.

They emerged out into the sunshine and he immediately pulled her tightly against his side as they began walking to his car, parked nearby, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. She could certainly get used to this feeling... assuming she could convince herself that it wasn't going to suddenly evaporate. But one thing at a time.

Sadly, it was only seconds later when she opened her eyes to once again find herself lying alone in her bed, staring at a blank wall. The dreams happened so frequently, they barely surprised her anymore. It still felt like slow torture, but she had to admit that here in the world that she inhabited when she was awake, things weren't quite as bad between them as they had been.

And so to her surprise, many hours and a dangerous mission later, during which she'd been desperately afraid that he'd been shot, she found herself knocking on his door, holding a paper bag containing his favorite Pennsylvania beer. They'd had a short heart to heart earlier, and he had admitted that the fact that Allie was moving to Colorado, and that he wouldn't get to help raise the baby that he had not yet even met, had left him feeling alone.

And no, things were still not perfect between them, but she knew how it felt to be alone. If she could help him _not_ feel that by keeping him company, then she wanted to do it. She wanted them to be friends, and wasn't that what friends did for each other?

When she knocked on his door, there was music playing inside his apartment. She stood for a few seconds that felt never ending, wondering if this had been a bad idea. Just as she began rethinking the fact that she'd showed up at his apartment, he pulled the door open. It wasn't her imagination, she didn't think, that he looked pleasantly surprised to see her.

"Hey," he said simply.

"It's not dumb," she told him, getting right to the point.

"What's not dumb?" he asked, confused.

"That you're feeling alone. That's what I was going to say earlier."

"Thank you," he replied, and she could hear the sincerity in his voice.

"And there's really no reason that we both should be sitting home alone when I've got this amazing Pennsylvania beer." She was beaming as she showed him her surprise, hoping that it would help cheer him up. He smiled as he took it from her.

"Did you just go out and buy these?" Yes, it was just beer, and it wouldn't solve his problems, but at the same time it was far more. It was Jane making a gesture of goodwill, bringing something that she knew would make him happy, purely because she knew that he was feeling low. That was the true sign of someone who cared, and just then he felt a little bit less alone.

"Well, I hear it's pretty good," she replied, feeling her insides warm because she could see that it had made him happy.

"Yeah, it's the best. Please, come in," he told her, only just realizing that she was still standing in his doorway.

"Okay," she smiled. It had been a long time. As she walked in and took off her jacket, the memories of the other times that she'd been there came flooding back.

He'd closed the door and followed her inside, setting the six pack down and opening two of them. When he groaned suddenly, she looked at him with concern. "Are you okay?"

"Bit sore from, uh, where your brother shot me," he replied dramatically, and Jane couldn't help but smile. The operation had been stressful, something of a disaster, and thank God the bullets had hit Reade and Kurt in the plates… They were sore, but they were _alive_.

"I am not asking for you to put him back in the field again. I just," she paused and let out a sigh then. "Just let him outside once in a while. Or put him somewhere with a window."

"Fine. I'll think about it," he conceded, and that was really all that Jane had been hoping for.

"Cheers."

They clinked their bottles together, and for a split second, everything was perfect. Of course, it never stayed that way for long, and she knew that this would be no exception. Still, the fact that they'd had this moment at all was momentous progress, and later, after they recovered from the shock of the evening and as the mystery deepened, she couldn't help but smile, thinking back to that moment.

After all, the idea of peace and friendship between them was no longer the impossible dream that it had once seemed. And if _that_ wasn't impossible, well… who knew what _else_ might happen?


	10. My Favorite Kind of Surprise

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)**_

"Well, what do you think?" Jane asked as she stepped out from the doorway of the bedroom, wearing a dress that Kurt had only seen on a hanger in their closet. It had been there for the past few weeks, waiting for today.

She couldn't help but smile at his expression when he looked up at her from where he stood in the kitchen. He'd been in the middle of making them something to eat before they left for a full day of the festivities that went along with Sarah's wedding. For once, she was the first one ready, since he'd been afraid of getting a spot on his own formalwear. For the time being he was, instead, wearing a t-shirt and shorts, waiting until the last minute to change. Now, standing in the kitchen and turning to look at Jane as she continued to walk towards him, he simply stared.

It was almost unheard of that she wore a dress outside of their few undercover missions at work, and she was very much enjoying the look on his face this time. This dress was a pale green, and it fit her perfectly – fitted on the top, and soft and flowing from the waist down. Unlike when she'd gotten dressed up for their undercover missions, it wasn't black, and wasn't required to cover her tattoos, and she felt simultaneously self-conscious and liberated by both the lack of sleeves and the fact that the length stopped at her knees. No, there would be no fading into the crowd for Jane – not that there ever had been, really, but far less so the more of her skin her clothing showed off.

Having almost closed the entire distance between them, she grinned at his speechlessness. She could see that his eyes were glued to her, and she found that she liked the attention. His mouth was ajar, but still no sound escaped it.

 _Speechless is good, I think,_ she thought as she neared him.

She'd been walking in his direction slowly on purpose, trying to give him enough time to actually look at her dress and form words – over time she'd noticed that when she very occasionally dressed up, he always seemed to always react just the same way he had the first time he'd seen her in the dress and makeup that she'd worn the day they'd met Rich Dotcom for the first time – stunned and speechless. That in itself was a compliment, she knew, as was the reverent look in his eyes.

As she'd gotten into the habit of doing in the rare cases, she stopped just short of where he could reach her, smiling at him with her hands on her hips, just waiting. This had become her signal to him that he had yet to form any words to respond to the question about what he thought of what she was wearing.

"Wow," he whispered, taking a step towards her while still looking at her appreciatively. "I like it."

"Not too… I don't know. Too much? Too little? I know what a big deal this is to Sarah… I just hope it looks okay" As she babbled, he closed the distance between them, shaking his head and reaching for her.

"It's perfect," he mumbled, his arms drawing around her waist to pull her closer. "You're perfect."

"Those hands had better be clean, Weller," she growled as his hands slid across the back of her dress. Of course, it would have been too late if they hadn't been. "You mess up this dress, one of the other bridesmaids might kill you."

"They're clean," he mumbled into her ear. "And it's worth the risk." She could only smile in response as she leaned into him, her arms circling around his neck. She tilted her head back only just enough to look up and grin at him, sighing softly.

"I wish this wasn't going to take the _entire_ day," she lamented, looking into his eyes and now finally feeling relaxed. While getting dressed and ready, she'd been getting herself more and more nervous about the events of the day, which seemed ridiculous because it wasn't even her wedding. But it _was_ a day of showing a lot more ink than she usually did in front of a _lot_ of people she didn't know, of smiling when she felt uncomfortable, and who knew what else. After all, she couldn't remember if she'd ever been to another wedding before, so it was just another situation that felt like the great unknown. Between Kurt's descriptions of previous ones he'd attended and everything she'd read online, it sounded as though it was going to be an exhausting day.

"Well, look at the bright side," he told her. "Whatever else happens, we're not working, we're going to be _together_ , somewhere where the focus is on my sister… so basically, we can just hang around and do this." With that, he leaned down to kiss her, not stopping until air was a necessity.

Once again leaning back to look at him a few minutes later, she shook her head and smiled. "I may never have been to a wedding before, but I think our official duties as members of the wedding party may include a little more than just standing around and kissing," she told him. "And I think if we kiss like _that_ , while _I_ have zero complaints… somehow I feel like that would attract a little attention." When he pretended to pout, she added, "Though it's a very nice thought."

He chuckled, nodding his head. "Well… in any case, it's not every day that saving the world is _not_ on our agenda," he observed. "That counts for something, right?"

"True," she agreed. "Though you never know. There've been plenty of times when it wasn't on the agenda, but we had to do it anyway."

"You're right about _that_ , Miss Doe," he told her, gazing at her happily. "But for Sarah's sake, I sincerely hope it doesn't come to that." Then he reluctantly loosened his grip on her, glancing over his shoulder at the food on the counter. "But we need to eat, so that we can get going. Big day ahead."

Nodding in agreement, even though she felt a sense of hesitation at the prospect of moving any farther away from him, she slowly took a step back. As she looked over at what he'd made for them, her left hand slid down his arm to his hand, which she took in hers. Seeing identical omelets on two plates, she felt her mouth begin to water.

"I was trying to think of something as non-messy as possible," he told her.

Looking up at him with slightly narrowed eyes, she replied playfully, "And exactly what are you trying to say?"

"That it would be a shame to get your gorgeous dress dirty, of course," he said, leaning toward her with a peck to her lips before stepping back, dropping her hand reluctantly and picking up both of their plates to bring them to the table. Shaking her head and chuckling, she took out silverware and followed him.

"Good save," she said with a shake of her head.

Only a few minutes later, their plates empty, she shooed him off to get changed as she took the dishes to the kitchen. She could hear him moving around in the bedroom as she rinsed everything and put it all away in the dishwasher, and she couldn't help but smile. She'd lived with Roman for a while, of course, but that had obviously not been the same. No, she still couldn't get over how much she loved living with Kurt. She'd held out for a while, but when it came down to it, she had realized that she had nothing to prove, to herself or anyone else. The simple fact was that she would rather be with him than by herself.

Even now, months after she'd moved into his apartment, she couldn't get over how much she liked the fact that the apartment was almost never completely silent the way her safe house had been – even when she was home alone, it didn't feel silent in the same way. No, she might never get used to how nice it was to hear Kurt moving around in the next room. It seemed silly and trivial when she thought about it, but it was simply one of the things that she loved about living with him.

Standing up and closing the dishwasher, she turned and looked out past the counter on the island, into the living room. Even in those few short years since she had been Jane, she remembered so many different things that had happened here in this apartment. Just this thought alone made her smile – there had been a time when it had felt like she would _never_ have the luxury of happy memories. Of course, back then it had been hard to come to terms with the fact that in order to have memories – or at least, memories that she _wanted_ to have – she would have to make all new ones. And it wasn't as though she hadn't made her share of terrible _new_ memories as Jane, as well. However, thanks to Kurt, the good ones far outnumbered the bad ones.

She was so lost in thought that she didn't even hear him come back out of the bedroom ten minutes later, now ready to go. Indeed, when he stepped behind her and put his arms around her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder, she turned her head towards him, leaning her cheek against his with a grin.

"That was my favorite kind of surprise," she told him.

"What kind?" he asked, mumbling almost into her ear.

"You," she replied, and was rewarded with the feeling of the muscles in his cheek moving as he smiled at her. This would literally never, ever get old. This feeling that he gave her when they were this close… like absolutely nothing in the world mattered except that very moment.

"Lost in thought again?" he guessed.

"Yeah," she replied, her voice catching slightly. "I was thinking about the night we played Uno Attack with Sawyer," she said simply. That memory was bittersweet, of course, since as much fun as they had had at that time, she'd been under Oscar's influence. To that day, she regretted not telling Kurt that his life had been threatened if she didn't do those damned "small tasks" for Sandstorm that had eventually led to Mayfair's death. She would have done anything to undo those particular choices… but that was neither here nor there. They couldn't change the way things had happened. Thankfully, they'd gotten past it.

She felt his arms pull her closer, and she knew without either of them saying a word that _he_ knew exactly where her mind had gone. Exhaling slowly, she tried to release the pangs of regret that she always felt at the memory. They'd long since talked about that night, about all of it, and agreed that since she couldn't change any of it, dwelling on it didn't do any good. If only it was that easy.

"Hey," he whispered against her cheek, then kissed it gently.

 _Message received._ Her lips curved upwards in a sad smile, and her head tilted to lean her cheek against his.

"We should get going," he added in the same whisper a moment later.

She felt herself shiver as she nodded, the memory not having let go of her quite yet. "Jane," he said, appearing to understand. There were certain memories that always took a little extra coaxing on his part to break her out of, after all. "Turn around."

It seemed to work, sometimes, to have her physically turn so that she was no longer looking at whatever had triggered the memory. Sometimes that was all she needed, and sometimes he had to work a little harder. He never seemed to mind, and he always seemed to know how to get through to her. It was just another of the million things that she loved about him.

Now with her back to the island that separated the kitchen from the living room, she looked up into the kindest eyes she had ever known. Taking a deep breath, she pushed everything else aside, reminding herself to let go of everything else. They had made it, after all. Everything that had happened… it didn't matter anymore. Believing this had taken a lot of practice, but she was getting better.

"Ready?" he asked softly, looking at her as if he could see right into her head.

 _Maybe he can_. He read her so well that there were lots of times when she suspected that he was doing just that – reading her thoughts.

His smile, as always, was mesmerizing, and for a few seconds she couldn't reply because she was simply lost in _this_ moment, now successfully disengaged from the memory. Finally she recovered the power of speech.

"Yes, let's go before we're late. You do _not_ want to start off on the wrong foot with Sarah today," she advised him.

"That applies to any day, but _especially_ today," he agreed with a chuckle.

His arms dropped from around her and he stepped back, but kept hold of her right hand, holding it loosely as they began to walk. "What are we missing? Before we walk out the door?" he asked her, rubbing his thumb against the skin of the back of her hand and watching her smile because of it.

"My purse, and the wrap that goes with this dress," she told him. "They're on the bed." Without a word, he began walking back toward the bedroom, not letting go of her hand. Pulled along behind him, she shook her head and chuckled. He seemed to know exactly what she found amusing, because he didn't ask any questions, simply turned and looked at her over his shoulder, grinning.

"There you are," he told her, handing her the tiny silver purse and then letting go of her hand to drape the delicate green fabric over her shoulders, before reaching down to capture her hand again.

She wasn't used to the weight of a purse on her arm, but her dress was distinctly without pockets, and it wasn't the right season nor the right outfit for a jacket, so… a small purse it was.

"Thank you," she said softly, looking up at him once again with a smile that she hope conveyed just how very happy she was at that moment. "Now let's get out of here."

Hours later, after all the of the bride's nervous jitters and the getting ready and the ceremony itself, along with about three quarters of a dazzlingly decorated reception, Jane and Kurt found themselves sitting down at a table on an outdoor patio of a restaurant that Jane knew was famous but hadn't heard of before the planning had begun for Sarah's wedding. It was just at the edge of Central Park, and strings of white lights hung over their heads, creating a fairy tale-like feel and bathing the entire party in a warm glow. This night had truly been magical, and Jane was glad that Sarah seemed so happy. She certainly deserved it.

They sat close together on somewhat uncomfortable white wooden folding chairs, Jane's chair turned sideways beside Kurt's so that her legs could rest over his lap. He was holding an ice pack on her ankle, which she'd managed to twist in a rather spectacular fashion on the dance floor a few minutes before.

"Any better?" he asked, looking over at her hopefully.

Distracted, Jane nodded absently. "A little," she said with a sigh, consciously ignoring the pain in her ankle. After all, this was light years away from the most painful thing that had happened to her. Her ankle seemed like such a trivial injury after everything she'd been through in her past.

Besides distracting herself from the pain in her ankle, she'd been watching, while distinctly pretending _not_ to watch, as a few of Sarah's friends had been staring at her with only thinly veiled looks of hostility on their faces. Jane had kept a pleasant smile on hers the best she could, considering that she was in pain, pretending she didn't see the looks she was getting. Sarah had warned her early in the day about the few friends of hers that had had crushes on her older brother for as long as she'd known them, and she had been right – those were the girls now giving her the evil eye.

Jane liked to think that it didn't have anything to do with her tattoos, but she had a feeling that Kurt being there with the girl covered in ink was probably even worse than if he'd shown up with someone else. After all, they would be far from the first people to judge her that way.

"They're just jealous," he told her softly, having leaned over to rest his cheek against hers and speak beside her ear. "The girls that are giving you nasty looks. They've been staring at me pretty intensely since I was about eighteen years old, maybe before that, any time I was anywhere near them. They're like vultures. They'd give those looks to _anyone_ I was with. It's _not_ you."

He'd overheard Sarah's words of warning, and had immediately known which of Sarah's high school friends would be in attendance. How he had _not_ missed that crowd since their last encounter, many years ago.

Turning her head to speak near _his_ ear, she kissed his cheek before replying. "I don't think the tattoos help, though."

"Who cares? It's their issue, not yours," he told her. She didn't _care_ what these women thought of her, but it wasn't her first choice to be scowled at all evening.

"I know," she said, working hard to ignore the feeling of being watched. "Personally, I'm glad you wore this dress. I like to show you off."

Her chair was just close enough to his now to allow her to lean her head on his shoulder, and his arm went part way around her shoulders in return. Closing her eyes to block out the looks she may or may not be getting, she snuggled against him. His free hand came to rest on her knee a few seconds later, and his fingertips played with the edge of the fabric of her dress for a few seconds. She just smiled but remained still as he let go of her dress. Seconds later, she recognized the pattern he was tracing on the skin below her knee as the lines of her tattoos. She'd always loved this feeling, finding it simply mesmerizing.

"Do you want to go home so you can rest?" he whispered in her ear.

She shook her head against him, but after only a split second pause and without opening her eyes, she asked, "What time is it?"

"Almost eleven," he replied. "This party will be breaking up soon anyway."

"We can stay as long as you want," she assured him. "I'm fine."

"The problem is, you say that no matter what… even when you're not," he reminded her soothingly, his fingers still tracing the ink on her leg. It wasn't an accusation, it was a statement of fact. Deep down, she knew that he was right, of course.

Opening her eyes just a crack to look at him, she tried to read his expression in the semi-darkness of the hanging lights above them. "But I _am_ fine," she insisted. "And this is Sarah's _wedding day_. We can't just skip out because I twisted my ankle! Don't we have some sort of duties to perform?"

"As members of the wedding party, you mean?" he asked with a chuckle. "No, our duties are done."

Just then, a breathless Sarah was standing above them. "Hey you guys," she said, her face flushed and her smile radiant. "Jane, how are you feeling? Are you okay? Do you need anything?"

The two of them looked up at Sarah and smiled. "I'm fine, really Sarah, but thank you. Trust me when I saw your brother has it under control." She tilted her head toward the ice pack still balancing on her ankle, then looked up at Sarah.

"Yeah, I see that," Sarah replied with a grin. "And there's definitely no one better for that job. Taking care of Jane seems to be his specialty." She glanced around the room with a smile, then looked back down at her brother. "The party's breaking up. You should get her home so she can get some rest," Sarah told Kurt.

"That's actually what I was just telling her myself," he told his sister in amusement.

"And as I just told Kurt, I'm _fine_ ," Jane protested, but Sarah just smiled at her.

"You're just as stubborn as this knucklehead," Sarah said, tilting her head at Kurt. "Must be why you two are so perfect for each other."

"One of many reasons," Kurt insisted, looking down to see Jane grin. Her insides tingled with happiness, and she wondered how in the world this was possible… That she was allowed to be this _happy_.

Suddenly she had a strange sensation, a sense of foreboding, as if something was wrong but she couldn't figure out what.

 _But you're_ _ **not**_ _allowed to be this happy, are you?_ the voice in her head asked her. _And you know it._

In a flash, panic moved through her, and suddenly there was no color left anywhere in her line of sight – everything had faded into black and white. It reminded her of the dream she'd had, the one where she'd been having dinner with Kurt and Roman one minute, and then having a knock-down-drag-out fight with Remi, which of course _wasn't even possible,_ the next minute. In a panic, she looked up to where Kurt had been, his face so close to hers, only seconds before, but it was gone.

She began to feel dizzy then, and she swore that she was falling. No longer was a twisted ankle the extent of her problems. All of a sudden, she was falling into nothingness.

Thankfully, if that word could be used in this situation in which the world seemed to be crumbling around her, she _didn't_ fall into nothingness after all. Instead, however, she did regain consciousness, no longer falling. Now suddenly she was lying on her back, in her own bed, staring at the familiar plain white ceiling.

 _Breathe,_ she ordered herself. _In and out_. _In and out_. There was nothing else to be done, and after so much practice, she knew exactly what to do. _Just make it to the next task_ , she told herself _. Do not overthink what you just saw or felt. Try not to remember it, either, because it won't help. It only makes things worse._

 _Get up._

 _Brush your teeth._

 _Shower._

 _Get dressed._

 _Make coffee._

 _Go to work._

 _Forget._

It was strange, telling herself to forget. It ran counter to everything she'd tried to do for her entire short time as Jane. But it was what she needed to do.

 _Isn't it funny how you keep dreaming about Kurt?_ the voice in her head observed innocently. _You've never dreamt about Oliver. Not even once._

 _It doesn't mean anything,_ Jane told herself.

 _Of course not,_ the voice replied obligingly, without sarcasm for once. Still, the message was clear. She just chose to ignore the message – after all, what good would it do? It didn't matter what she may or may not have wanted… she couldn't have him, so she shouldn't think about it.

Once she left her house, the day seemed to pass by in a flash. At the end of it, after the team had been split up and, as usual, had faced the prospect of death and injury, somehow she'd ended up walking down a hall at the NYO, alone with Kurt for the first time that day. Besides a few minutes many hours before, it was the first she'd seen of him at all that day. Now she stood in the hall, talking to him about the events of the day as he told her that he wished she could have seen him shoot Rich. That was when Oliver texted her.

Kurt asked her if she had 'a hot date,' and she was pretty sure he expected her to say no – it was a joke, after all. She almost did say no, just because she was so flustered. But, thinking quickly, she realized that it _was_ a date, and, well… she didn't know what a 'hot date' was, exactly, but there was no use denying that she had a date. After all, they were working on honesty. There had been enough lies between them, and there was certainly no reason to lie about something so small just because she felt funny telling him.

Besides, it wasn't as though there was anything between herself and Kurt. Sadly, it seemed like they'd missed their chance. Now, she was just lucky that they seemed to be back to being friends.

She stumbled over her words possibly worse than ever before. "No, I… Well… I mean yeah, but it's not… you know… it's not… it's… it's a date," she finally confirmed.

 _Why was that so hard to tell him?_ she wondered.

 _You know why,_ the voice in her head reminded her.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Jane told him, for lack of anything better to say. This conversation had turned more than a little awkward, but she did her best to smile at him.

"See you tomorrow," Kurt agreed, smiling right back.

Jane walked past him down the hall, relieved once she'd walked around the corner. Things were finally comfortable between the two of them again, but just then, admitting to him that she had a date… _that_ had been awkward.

He watched her until she rounded the corner, not having moved from the spot where he'd been standing when she'd said she had a date.

 _She has a date?_

It was hard to know what to do with that information. All he knew, as he stood there, was that he was still staring after her even though she'd disappeared from his view.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he continued down the hall, back to his office.


	11. Don't Let Go

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)**_

 _A/N: Hi, it's me. Yes, it's been a while. Many apologies. That whole writing a book thing is still happening, and then I moved and was swallowed up by the task of unpacking. Doing my best to keep on top of things. I have no intention of abandoning Jane and Kurt, despite my crazy schedule. Please forgive the wait since the last chapter. For now, I hope you enjoy this one, which was inspired by the FREEZING temperatures on the East Coast over the past week or so._

It was one of those days when she dreamed of the unforgiving heat of summer. There were things that she loved about every season, and Jane did enjoy winter, but there was something about a day this cold that made it hard to remember how anyone could like anything about winter. No, when it was this bitterly cold outside, it was hard to remember _anything_ at all.

They'd only walked a few blocks, from the bakery that had long since been their favorite – the one that made Jane's favorite croissants. Those pastries were the only reason Jane had been willing – foolishly, she could now see – to brave the cold and even an unexpected inch of snow outside.

She had nothing against snow, and she could usually enjoy its beauty. As a matter of fact, Kurt had grown accustomed to the fact that when it snowed, Jane would drag him outside to play in it, no matter how much he protested. But Jane had just discovered that when it was sixteen degrees Fahrenheit, her excitement over snow melted away. That was much too far below freezing, as far as she was concerned.

Even though they'd already been in the building for several minutes before they reached the apartment that she still struggled to remember was _theirs,_ and not just his, she was still shivering. Kurt held the paper bag of food and his own cup of coffee. Jane, on the other hand, wasn't just holding her coffee, but clutching it for dear life. As soon as she was through the doorway, she made a beeline for the thermostat, nudging the setting up several degrees.

"Please don't turn this place into a sauna, sweetheart," he requested, unsure that she'd actually heard him. "Why don't you come over to the couch and sit under the blankets with me?"

Her teeth were still chattering when she turned around to look at him. "I like the way you think," she grinned. He had already taken off his boots and was in the process of removing his jacket, hat, scarf and gloves, tossing them into the small dryer around the corner from the front door. As she watched him, she couldn't help but think that he looked adorable with his hair slightly messy from the hat he'd been wearing until just then.

"What?" he asked when he saw her standing there, staring at him.

"You have 'hat head,'" she informed him. "It's cute on you."

He made a face, pretending to be upset, but couldn't hold it more than a few seconds. He was smiling again by the time he reached the couch, coffee and food in hand. "Are you joining me here, or what?" he asked, raising his eyebrows at her.

"Yes," she replied, suddenly moving. She hung up her jacket and then threw the rest of her snow-covered winter gear into the dryer, as he had done, pressing 'start.' "It's still freezing in here," she whimpered, shooting an accusatory glance at the thermostat as she made her way across the room toward him, coffee in hand once again.

"Come here, silly," he told her, holding out a hand in her direction. As soon as she was within arm's reach of him, his hand landed on her waist, tugging her closer and then encircling her as she sat down on the couch. He pulled her legs up over his lap, which earned him a smile of contentment from her, and then pulled a fuzzy, pale blue blanket over both of their legs.

Snuggling against him, Jane sipped her coffee and watched him, wondering what he was up to. He had a determined look on his face and didn't look like someone ready to settle down and relax.

Reaching away from her for a second, he retrieved a second blanket that was sitting at the far end of the couch. This one was bigger, not quite as soft but made of wool, so it was even warmer. It was navy blue, and Kurt had told her once that he'd had it since he was a kid. Keeping hold of one end in his right hand, he leaned forward so that he could thread the blanket behind him, tugging at it until he had it around the other side of him. After that, wrapping the free end behind Jane was comparably easier, pulling it snugly around her shoulders.

Now that they were wrapped up together in not one but two blankets, Jane couldn't help but grin. Of all the things that could have made up for that cold walk, this was the perfect one. The croissants, while delicious, were not enough. But snuggling under the blankets with Kurt? Even if they hadn't had food and coffee to enjoy, this would have been perfect. The fact that they did have those things was simply icing on the cake.

Holding her coffee in two hands, she took a sip and then laid her temple against his shoulder, sighing happily.

"Feel better?" he asked.

"So much better. I'm still cold, though," she replied with a smile. "I'm not sure I'll ever be warm again."

"Give me another minute to work my magic," he told her, which made her chuckle. "It's still warming up. Also, have some more of your coffee. Is it hot enough?"

"Not as hot as I'd like, but I don't want either of us to move, so I'll make do." Thinking for a few seconds, she added, "As a matter of fact, can we just stay on this couch until spring? Because I think hibernating is sounding pretty good right now."

Chuckling in amusement, he leaned forward to put his cup on the coffee table, then rubbed his hands together. Once he was satisfied with their warmth, he laid them over Jane's hands, which were still wrapped around her coffee cup, attempting to extract every bit of warmth from it that she could get.

She'd been smiling at him already, but her smile now widened across her cheeks, her eyes falling closed as she leaned down against him again. "I love you," she mumbled, feeling laughter rumble through him. A kiss landed on the top of her head, and his hands left hers. She frowned, but then felt him pulling the navy blue blanket tighter around her only a second later, before pulling her into a tight hug.

"I love you, too, Jane," she heard him whisper. Her eyes were still closed, and she wondered how it was possible for it to be this perfect. She'd never enjoyed snow this much… though technically, it wasn't the snow that she was enjoying at the moment.

"Do you want to eat?" she heard him ask. She still hadn't opened her eyes, and now she was feeling drowsy.

"Not yet," she replied with a yawn. "I don't want to move. Ever again."

Again, he chuckled. "Well, I can't promise that I'll go along with that," he replied slowly. "But I will agree that I'm perfectly happy where I am at this moment. However," he added, shifting slightly, to her displeasure, "You have to let me take this coffee away from you for now, so it doesn't spill, because I think you're getting sleepy in this little cocoon of ours. Am I right?" He was already gently taking the cup out of her hands, leaning forward to put it besides his own.

"Maybe," she admitted grudgingly, not objecting to her coffee being taken away but still refusing to sit up or open her eyes.

"There," he said soothingly, leaning back and pulling her even closer than before. "Better?" They were once again cocooned together under the blankets.

"Yes," she replied, once again feeling drowsy from an overdose of warmth and comfort. There were not enough words to express how happy she was just then.

"Good." He kissed her forehead this time, sending electricity radiating through her, but the drowsiness continued to pull her in.

Sleep was about to pull her into its clutches, she knew, when suddenly there was something very important that she needed to tell him. And just like that, she was fighting sleep with everything inside her, trying to remember what it was that was so important. Alas, whatever it was remained just beyond her reach.

"Don't let go."

The words escaped her mouth just before sleep pulled her in, and even as she felt him pulling her tighter, there was the sudden realization that it wasn't going to be enough. No matter how tightly he held on, it wouldn't be enough.

A few seconds later, the next feeling she was conscious of was despair. She knew where she was before she opened her eyes, before she forced herself to admit that once again, it had been a dream. Breathing slowly but deliberately, she prepared herself to face reality. Pushing aside the emotions left over from the dream, as she'd taught herself to do since they'd started, she felt the familiar numbness inside her.

She didn't like feeling nothing – it was too reminiscent of her flashbacks to being Remi – but if the choice was to be numb, or to be in agony over dreams that reminded her what she would never have, then numb it would be. Besides, she had certainly been through worse than just feeling sad, hadn't she?

 _Of course I have,_ she told her self determinedly. _I was trained as a child soldier. I had my memory erased. I was held in a black site, for God's sake_.

And yet… why did this feel worse than any of those things?

 _Don't be ridiculous,_ she told herself. _Now get moving._

That was when she realized that she felt cold, even though she always kept her safe house at the same temperature.

 _Deep breath,_ she told herself. _It was a dream. Now stop it. Get up. Right now. Get in the shower. Move on._

It figured that as soon as she arrived at the FBI, she was informed that Kurt and Roman had headed into the gym together. Immediately she was suspicious. It turned out that Kurt had decided to try to trigger Roman's memories by fighting. While she could see the validity of this attempt when she thought about it logically, the reality of seeing them beating each other was unsettling.

Kurt had gone to get cleaned up when Roman confronted her about why she hadn't yet told the other man that he'd killed Emma Shaw, as she had promised. Though she tried to explain to him that she was protecting him, deep down she knew that he was right – when Kurt found out, he would be angry with _her_. Still, she had to tread lightly and the time just wasn't right…

That conversation had unsettled her, heaping stress on top of the strain of the dream she'd had the night before. She was lost in thought when she rounded a corner, on her way to see Patterson, frowning as her thoughts beat angrily at the inside of her head. Without warning, Kurt caught up to her.

"Did you get Patterson's text?" he asked.

"On my way to the lab," she replied tensely.

"How'd it go last night?" he asked, in the same tone in which he'd inquired about Patterson's text.

 _What in the world is he talking about?_ But she didn't have time to react before he continued.

"Your… date," he added.

For a few seconds she resembled a deer in headlights as she stared at him in shock. _He doesn't really want to know that… does he? Do I want to tell him that? And wait a second… It couldn't be a good thing that she'd gone out with Oliver and then dreamed about Kurt._

"Oh, uh, I…"

"Sorry… You don't need to…" he stuttered. He hadn't meant to pry, and he realized only after the words came out that he had been overstepping. The fact that there were things about Jane that were none of his business was unfamiliar territory to him, and he found that he didn't like it. He'd always been used to her telling him pretty much everything. "After you told me about it, I started thinking."

Her eyes widened slightly. _He's been thinking about this?_

"We have to be careful. Sandstorm feels like it's everywhere. Shepherd's been watching me since I was a kid. They used you against me."

"You think Oliver is part of Sandstorm?" There was just a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Surely, he was just being paranoid. After all, one of the things that she liked best about Oliver was how normal he was.

"We didn't realize Borden was with them until it was too late."

 _Okay, he's right about that. But…_ Her face softened as she realized that he had a point. Still…

"Inviting new people into our lives… that could give them the opening they're looking for."

Taking in this new idea, that Oliver could have had an ulterior motive for wanting to go out with her, her face tensed in frustration. She couldn't think of a reply. What Kurt was asking of her… did he even realize what he was asking of her? Not to meet anyone new for… for how long, exactly? There was probably an end to this case in the future, _somewhere_ , but it certainly didn't feel like it would be anytime soon. So he expected her to just live in this sort of limbo indefinitely?

Logically, she understood his concern, but she felt trapped all over again. Somehow, it seemed that no matter what she did, she ended up trapped. She may not have been physically trapped this time, but this was worse, in a way. At least when she was physically trapped, she could more easily figure out how to escape.

That was when Nas walked into the hallway, greeting them with an insincere "Good morning," that Jane suspected was for her benefit. It wasn't as though everyone hadn't seen them arriving together more often than not, after all. The two of them began talking and Jane didn't bother to try to stop herself from scowling, grudgingly forcing herself to listen.

 _Get it together,_ she told herself. _It is what it is._

And then it was back to the reality of the day. Nas had a possible lead, and they were on the way to Patterson's lab to see what she had for them. There was no more time to dwell on the rest of it.

It was better this way, anyway.


	12. Every Morning

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)**_

 _A/N: Once again, apologies. I know it has been far too long between updates. My book is still the reason – I'm editing it as fast as I can so I can get it finished and introduce you to THOSE characters. But for now, a short chapter (I'm in editing mode, after all) about Jane and Kurt. Enjoy!_

The noise was so loud that it made her wish for her alarm clock, whose buzzing usually had her springing out of bed to turn the damn thing off as fast as humanly possible. But this noise, the MRI machine that was blasting random patterns of sounds so intensely that they'd given her thick headphones to wear to dull the sound, wasn't one she could turn off. No, she had to sit perfectly still, enduring the noise. She watched the digital display on the machine, watched it count down to silence, only to have it recalibrate and start again with a different, jarring set of noises.

The machine was taking four sets of photos of her ankle – or was it five? She could no longer remember. The first few had taken only thirty to forty seconds, but the one that had just started said that it would be another five minutes. While that may not be an exceptionally long time in reality, sitting immobilized, listening to the noise thunder in her ears, it felt like an eternity.

Right now she was fighting with her own mind, trying to push away flashbacks of the CIA black site – a reaction to the MRI that she hadn't expected, at least the first time. While this test obviously didn't compare to the most extreme of her torture, she had also been immobilized many times during her captivity, forced to endure blaring noise, among other, far more unpleasant things. It was hard to convince her mind that that wasn't what this was, but she did her best, gritting her teeth in frustration and trying to stop the images from repeating themselves.

 _It's just an MRI._

Opening her eyes, which had clenched themselves shut, she forced herself to stare up at the giant machine that was scanning her ankle. _I need this test so they can fix my ankle. It's not going to hurt me._

Logically she knew that, but it was still hard to stop herself from being afraid anyway.

 _Keep breathing, Jane._

She heard Kurt's voice in her head from a long time ago, and a smile found its way to her lips, despite the panic she felt. She'd left him in the waiting room after he'd argued with three different people about letting him come into the room with her. He'd apparently known better than she had how she was going to react to this test. He would be waiting for her when she was done, she knew, but just then it felt like he was a million miles away.

Finally, blissfully, the machine stopped its thundering noise and the technician came back into the room. The young woman unstrapped her foot, and looked surprised when Jane nearly jumped out of the brace that had held her ankle still during the test. Slowly, as if she was afraid to spook Jane, the tech took a step towards her and smiled.

"You can collect your things from the locker. Just leave the key in the lock, okay?" the young woman asked, her motions slow and deliberate. She could obviously see that Jane was afraid, and wanted to avoid agitating her further.

Jane, eager to leave as quickly as possible, nodded slightly, attempting to smile apologetically at the confused woman. Without a word, she turned and retreated from the room. Newly freed, she looked around suspiciously as she walked down the hall, still unable to quite shake the feeling of being in danger. Besides the black site, she'd been in enough shootouts in hospitals that, while this wasn't a hospital, it could pass for one enough to make her uneasy.

 _It will be better when you make it outside,_ she told herself. _Just get out of here._

Leaving the key in the locker as instructed, a minute later she swung the door to the lobby open to find Kurt sitting in a hard plastic chair, staring at the doorway. He was agitated, she could tell from his posture, and he stood up as soon as he saw her.

"Hey," he said, meeting her halfway across the lobby. "Everything okay?"

She couldn't help but notice that he'd stepped closer to her than he usually did in public, and that he'd hesitated for only a second before his hands had landed lightly on her waist. His eyes didn't move from hers as he waited for an answer.

"Uh, yeah," she replied noncommittally, glancing down. Really, she wasn't quite okay yet. "Let's just get out of here. _Please._ "

His eyes clouded with concern, but he nodded and slipped one arm around her back as he let the other one drop. Holding onto her securely, he propelled her towards the exit.

Outside, he helped her into the car. By the time he'd gotten himself into the driver's seat, she was sitting with her seatbelt on, staring at her lap.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

"Not yet," she replied without looking up.

Her hands sat limply in her lap, and she felt him reach over and cover her left one, squeezing gently and holding on. Their hands rested together on her left leg, and without discussion, they drove that way all the way home.

When he closed the apartment door behind them, turning the latch, Jane had already made it across the room to the window overlooking the street. There she stood, staring out at the same view she'd looked at many times. She was attempting to calm herself with the familiarity of it, but it wasn't working. After all, she'd stood here under many different circumstances, and not all of them good. The memories were coming back right and left, but they weren't all helping calm her down.

Slowly, Kurt walked up behind her, his footsteps heavy. She imagined that he wanted to give her some warning of his presence so that he didn't catch her by surprise. It was just like Kurt to be that thoughtful. When his arms wrapped around her waist as he stood behind her, that was when she felt the relief she'd been seeking. Finally letting out a sigh as she began to relax, she allowed herself to lean back against him, her eyes falling closed.

 _I could stay just like this._

"Let's sit down, okay?" he asked, his voice in her ear. She could only nod, her head tilting to lean against his as she sighed heavily. Suddenly, she was exhausted from the effort of the past few hours. It had taken everything inside her to endure the test without falling apart.

Not even conscious of which way she was moving, she felt Kurt steer her, turning her around and then somehow, maneuvering so that they both ended up sitting on the couch in front of the window. Her knees were draped over his lap, and both of his arms were around her protectively.

"Now do you want to talk about it?" he asked again.

It was a tricky question. She didn't _want_ to talk about it, exactly, but she needed to. It would help to say it out loud and expel the words from her head, so that they could be replaced with other, happier thoughts. Kurt had always been able to do that for her, like some kind of magic power.

She tensed in anticipation, as if saying the words would make them more real. "It was like last time. Like… being tied down, at the black site," she began. "Not quite as bad as last time, though, since only my leg was inside it. It was just so _loud_."

The last MRI Jane had had to endure had been of her head, and that time she'd had to be all the way inside the machine. That had been rougher, since the space inside was so small. That was how Kurt had known to expect a reaction from her this time, even though Jane had insisted that she would be fine.

"That's good," Kurt whispered. "And now it's over." Jane's head had dropped to his shoulder, and his head leaned against hers. She hadn't opened her eyes since they'd sat down, and she continued to squeeze them closed as she felt one of his hands release her. She tensed slightly, but he made a gentle shushing sound, and then a few seconds later she was covered with the soft blue blanket that always sat on the couch. Once it was pulled over them, he returned his arm to where it had been, around her.

Jane wanted to believe that it was over, but it felt as though it never really would be. How could it? After everything she'd been through, maybe she was just too damaged. Maybe she would always be reminded of the black site, and the other horrible things she'd been through.

And then suddenly Kurt's voice broke into her thoughts. "It's okay, Jane," he whispered soothingly. "You're not there. You're right here with me."

She wasn't sure if he was referring to not being at the black site or not being at the MRI, but either way, he was right. She wasn't there. She was here on the couch, just the two of them.

 _I'm not there,_ she repeated, drinking in the feeling of being snuggled with Kurt under a blanket. Finally, she felt herself relaxing again, as if she'd only just allowed herself to believe it when he'd said the words.

"Better?" he whispered.

Sometimes she wondered if he could read her mind, or if he was just paying such close attention that it seemed that way.

"Yeah," she replied. "How could you tell I wasn't okay?"

She felt his chuckle just as much as she heard it. "You're kidding, right?" he asked in amusement. "Besides the fact that you were tense as hell since we left the MRI?"

Scoffing quietly, she said nothing. Instead, she took deep breaths of this moment, hoping to somehow make it last forever somehow.

"Do you want something to eat?" he asked, to which she just shook her head, screwing up her face slightly at the idea of either of them getting up.

"No, I just want this. Exactly as we are right now," she whispered. "Food can wait."

Kissing her temple, he nodded in agreement. "Okay, but there will be food later. Just so we're clear."

He'd said it with a serious tone, but when Jane opened her eyes and looked at him, she saw Kurt grinning at her mischievously.

"I love you," she told him.

"And I love you," he replied, giving her the brilliant smile that only she ever had the honor of. "Forever."

There was that feeling again. That fuzzy, 'something isn't quite right' feeling. That sense of déjà vu even though she wasn't seeing anything familiar. And then she realized what it was when she opened her eyes, finding herself twisted up in her blankets. This morning, she was staring at the light coming in from her window. On the other side of the blinds that blocked out the world, but not the early morning light, there was an entire city just waking up.

Somewhere out there, Kurt was waking up. She pondered this only a second too long, just enough time to wonder _where_ exactly he was waking up. Not that she was one to judge. After all, she was going out with Oliver. It wasn't even the point, really… though she could not have explained to herself what the point actually was. It didn't matter. None of it.

Many, many hours and more than one life or death situation later, Jane listened as Oliver broke up with her in the same conference room where she'd sat for meeting after meeting, briefing after briefing. It was so surreal that she somehow managed to smile, even as he said the words to her face. Not a happy smile, exactly. Maybe it was more of an 'I knew it would come to this' smile.

"I don't think I have the emotional real estate for someone whose life is as complicated as my own."

 _Did I know it would come to this?_ she wondered.

When she thought about it, she decided that she had, somewhere deep down. After all, wasn't her life just too complicated for anything normal? Of course it was. She'd been foolish to even think it could have worked.

"You were incredible today," Oliver told her. And yet, it didn't feel like a compliment. But maybe that was just because she'd never been broken up with before.

When she told Zapata what had happened, and what Oliver had said, her response surprised Jane.

"That is a cop out."

Jane had tried to disagree. After all, who could really be expected _not_ to be overwhelmed by her? Everything about her life was just… _too much_ , too complicated.

"Everyone has baggage they bring into a relationship," Zapata told her wisely. "You and Oliver just weren't right for each other."

Zapata seemed so absolutely certain of this fact that Jane couldn't help but wonder. She'd heard the advice by now – _When it's right, you just know_. But since it seemed like nothing normal applied to her, she assumed that it wasn't ever going to. She was pretty sure that she was the exception to every rule – in which case, it wouldn't have surprised her if she was the one who _wouldn't_ know. Or, more realistically, she was just the one who wouldn't find anyone right for her. After all, who could possibly deal with her chaos, and do so voluntarily?

"How do you know?" Jane asked.

"Because when someone's really right for you, you make room."

The words were barely out of Zapata's mouth when Kurt appeared in their peripheral vision.

"Jane," he said, "Come with me, please."

Once upon a time, she might have thought something of the timing with which Kurt had just appeared, or of the feeling that flared up for just a second as the echo of Zapata's words in her head overlapped with Kurt's arrival. Once upon a time, she would have allowed herself that luxury. These days, of course, she was just thankful that the awkwardness between them was going away.

Yes, things were better with Kurt, but… not like that. It would have been wildly presumptuous to even hope for them to have another chance. She'd had his confidence, his trust… everything, and she'd blown it. She'd done horrible things, and horrible things had been done to her. The two of them had an understanding now, and they could be civil to each other. Warm, even. It was more than she'd expected only months ago.

But they couldn't be…. _that._ They couldn't be the way they had been, and certainly not the way they were in her dreams, no matter how sad it made her. She knew better than to even hope anymore.

She just had to remind herself of that again, every morning, so she didn't forget.


	13. Hope

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)**_

 _A/N: Once again, sorry for the unavoidable delays on this fic as I work on my book. In any case, I hope you enjoy this chapter. ;) Blindspot has put us through so much lately, with so little Jeller, so here's a little taste to tide us over. And hopefully this week we will hear that Blindspot was renewed for season 4._

Jane sat up in bed, breathing heavily and covered in sweat. Her dream had been so vivid, but it had been exactly that – a dream. Her heart still hammered in her chest as the images flashed before her eyes. It had been real, and then suddenly, it was gone. As she struggled to catch her breath, she tried to remember exactly what had happened that had her so wound up.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Kurt's voice beside her was sleepy, but impressively conscious for the middle of the night. He sat up and blinked in the darkness of the bedroom, his hand moving in circles on her back as he tried to stop her panic.

She could only shake her head. She had pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms tightly around them, then pressed her forehead against her knees. Her breathing was still coming in uneven, heaving gasps. It seemed that the more she remembered of her dream, the more upset she became. It was like the beginning all over again – back when she had first been Jane, when she'd wanted so desperately to remember – but once she had, she only wished that she could forget.

She could feel herself shaking, but she couldn't make it stop.

"Jane, it's okay." Again, his voice was in her ear, his arms now wrapped around her. This time, as she continued to remember the dream, the reassurance of his voice was overwhelming. Against her will, tears leaked out of her eyes.

 _He's safe. It's okay. It was a dream._

For what felt like an eternity, she could not force herself to calm down. The gasping and shaking went on far longer than ever before, but eventually she ran out of tears, her panic subsided, and her breathing returned to normal. She was finally still, though as exhausted as she was, she was sure that she would never sleep again. Not if it meant having another nightmare like the one she'd just had.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked. He made no move to let go of her. On the contrary, at some point he had shifted so that he could sit back against the pillows piled up together and hold onto her tighter than ever. "I don't think you've ever had such a bad one before."

"I haven't."

At first, those two words were all she could get out. She felt him kiss her temple, and she smiled wearily, still traumatized. Kurt said nothing. He didn't need to. She knew that if she told him that she just wanted to go to sleep, he would agree and that would be that. But she also knew that he would sit up with her as long as she needed him to. That feeling, that certainty, was everything – especially after the nightmare she'd just had. She needed something – someone – to cling to. No, that was wrong. She didn't just need something or someone to cling to. Her need was much more specific than that – she needed Kurt.

She began slowly, unsure of whether she could make herself say the words, but knowing that she wanted to. "In my dream, we went to investigate a shooting. A loft apartment where some guy had been shot by a sniper from across the road. The whole window was shot out during a party. I don't know what had led us there. We were there with the team and you—" Choking on the emotion that came with the words she was trying to say, she had to stop and take more deep breaths.

Kurt sat patiently, doing exactly what he'd been doing – holding onto her, leaning his forehead into her hair, and remaining as calm as possible in the hopes that it would rub off on her. He could see how much she needed his calm just then.

"You were shot by a sniper, too," Jane whispered, barely able to say the words. "Your vest didn't stop it. There was nothing that any of us could do. You were dead before we knew what had happened."

A long time ago, she had watched Markos die from a sniper bullet before her eyes. She hadn't remembered who he was at the time, but that barely mattered. Then much more recently, she'd watched Kurt and Reade get shot at close range on an op – thank goodness they'd been wearing vests. Now she'd seen him get shot again in her dream.

"Except that I'm not dead, Jane. I'm right here," he reminded her, holding onto her even tighter than before. "It was a dream. Everything is okay. Alright? You're safe. I'm safe." After a pause, he added, "As safe as we've ever been, anyway." There was a hint of a smile in his voice.

She nodded against him, trying to appreciate the humor of his words. They'd never been exactly safe, and they put themselves into dangerous situations all the time. Sometimes they did it on purpose, if that was what it took to solve a case, or to save someone. And yes, she knew that there were times when she took stupid risks, just like he did. Other times they had no choice – dealing with criminals who targeted them. After so many times when they could have died but hadn't, it was tempting to feel invincible. But her dream had been a painful reminder that they weren't.

"You're not getting rid of me that easily, Miss Doe. You're stuck with me, okay? I'm just as stubborn as you are, and I've decided that this is where I belong. With you. Alright?"

"Yes," she mumbled. "That's good."

She didn't know how long they sat like that, his arms wound around her tightly. She had ignored the clock, not knowing the time and not wanting to know. All she did know was that she felt slightly more amenable to the idea of sleep – not just yet, but at some point – and she began to relax against him. Kurt had always been able to reassure her when she was scared – ever since the very beginning. It was one of his superpowers.

"Now, do you think you might go back to sleep?" he asked. "There's still time for us to get a few more hours rest before we have to go in and save the world again." When she stiffened, he added quickly, "You don't even have to sleep, but I at least want you to rest, okay? I'm not going anywhere."

Again, she nodded against him, slowly relaxing again and managing not to panic when he shifted beside her. Little by little, he moved from sitting up to lying down again, spreading the pillows back out and even more gradually, shifting both of them until they were lying down.

Jane lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling. She was clearly exhausted, but her eyes were wide open as if held up by toothpicks.

Kurt's eyes, on the other hand, were heavy, drooping to almost closed again and again as he forced them open each time. It was still the middle of the night, after all, and they rarely got enough sleep. For as long as Jane could remember, she had never slept well, and neither of them ever had the time to sleep enough – their work usually didn't allow it, and the stress of their jobs didn't help.

"Did I ever tell you about the first night we met?" he asked. His voice was heavy with sleep.

"What about it?" she asked, thankful for the distraction from the sight of Kurt being shot that was replaying itself over and over in her head. "I remember that night." Smiling sadly, she added, "It's strange to say that, even now. That I remember something. How many times has my answer been I _don't_ remember?" There was sadness in her voice, and he tucked her hair out of her face so that he could press a light kiss to her lips.

"The night we met, after we sat in the interrogation room and you tried so hard to remember me…" he started.

She smiled sadly. Of course she hadn't remembered him, and now they knew why. She had never been Taylor, after all.

"And I dropped you off at that safe house…"

"I was so scared," Jane whispered, leaning against him to reassure herself that he was there. "The last thing in the world I wanted was to be alone."

"And I knew you didn't want me to go, and I didn't want to leave you there, but… I didn't know what else to do. So I made myself leave, and then I sat in my car outside the safe house for an hour, wishing I had an excuse to go back in."

"You didn't need an excuse."

"I did back then. I was so different. So… closed off." If she wasn't imagining it, he sounded sad. "I would have done anything to help you, even that first day. I just… I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how. And as you know, I didn't exactly deal well with emotions. Mine or anyone else's."

"You were different then, but very much the same. You believed me when no one else did. You saw _me_ when everyone else just saw my tattoos. And I'm so grateful to you for that. For everything." She smiled faintly for the first time since they'd gone to bed the night before.

"There's the smile," Kurt told her, nuzzling his face against her cheek. "I missed that smile." For a few seconds they were both quiet, and her head buzzed with thoughts of both the past and the present all at the same time.

That was the last thing she heard him say before the lightheadedness began. At first, she thought she was falling asleep. It was only a few seconds before she realized that she had it backwards, however. Seconds later she was blinking hard, her eyes adjusting to the faint light from the window.

She hadn't been falling asleep – she'd been waking up.

Looking first to one side of her and then the other, Jane realized that she was alone in her bed, and that all of it – waking up from the dream distraught and Kurt comforting her – that had been the dream. She allowed herself to lie still and stare at the ceiling, concentrating on breathing in and out as evenly as she could. Here she was, alone again.

For a second, she felt as though the sadness would break her in two.

With a heavy sigh, she forced herself out of bed. The day would undoubtedly bring challenges that she couldn't possibly imagine, and she welcomed them. Hopefully that would take her mind off of her own life once again. And if she was lucky, she and Kurt would find a moment to talk, and they would get along a little better than they had the day before. If she was lucky, they would earn another stitch in the repair job they were attempting to do on their friendship, and it would grow a little stronger.

As far as having anything more than friendship – with anyone – she was beginning to realize that it just wasn't meant to happen for her. It wasn't long ago that Oliver had told her that he didn't have the 'emotional real estate' to deal with her, and she really couldn't blame him. Who in their right minds would? There hadn't been anyone else but Kurt, and, well… she didn't know where things stood with him, or between him and Nas, but it didn't matter. It was just too complicated. They always had been, really, and their chance was behind them.

 _It's fine,_ she told herself. _He should do what makes him happy._

 _What about you?_ asked a little voice inside her. _What about your happiness?_

 _I'm lucky to have as much as I have,_ she reminded that voice _. Expecting more is just setting myself up for disappointment._

With that thought, she got up to face the day.

Many hours later, at the very end of a long day, during which Jane got far more to take her mind off of things than she could have anticipated, she sat at a table in a dimly lit bar beside Kurt. Patterson and Zapata had gone to get another round of drinks. Though she knew that she wasn't dreaming, she felt as though she was. How else could he be sitting in front of her, saying what he was saying?

"All of this led me to you. And you to me. And that is something that I would never want to undo."

She kept waiting to wake up. It had happened so many times by then – that just when she felt happiness, it was ripped away from her – that she'd grown accustomed to it. The idea that he would say something like that to her outside of a dream? It was impossible.

But it was happening, as much as she was afraid to believe it.

Still, she wondered if she would wake up alone again at any second.

It was as though they were being pulled together by an outside force, their faces drawing closer together without her consciously thinking about it. And then, just before they were close enough to kiss, Patterson and Zapata were back with more drinks. The spell of the moment was broken, but not in the way she'd expected.

 _But we're still here,_ she thought. _It didn't quite happen, but I didn't dream it._

Jane and Kurt looked at each other, slightly stunned. What had just happened? And as far as what had almost just happened… What exactly did they do now?

For the time being, they laughed and joked with their coworkers, sitting closer together than they had started the evening, but otherwise showing no outward signs that anything was different – at least, none that they knew of. There were no more opportunities like that one that night, but it didn't matter. Something had changed, and that was enough for the time being.

There was a smile firmly set into Jane's face for the rest of the night. No, nothing had happened between them, but at the same time, something even more important had. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, Jane's hope had been restored.

Once again, anything was possible.


	14. Back and Forth

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)**_

 _A/N: Okay, I know how long it's been. But my book is done (!) and being beta-read so I have a little break to hopefully finish this story (no, this is not the last chapter). Hope you enjoy it. :)_

Jane and Kurt lay on a blanket in the grass, in what felt the most remote spot on Earth – even though it wasn't all that far outside the city.

"We haven't done this in…" She tried to remember, but it felt like a lifetime. Maybe more.

"A long time." He finished her sentence for her. "Too long."

However long it was, it felt like ten times as long ago that they'd sat outside and looked up at the stars together. Practically all the way back at the beginning.

"Do you ever wonder…" she started without taking her eyes off of the sky. "…what would have happened if everything possible hadn't gone wrong for us? If we'd gotten to where we are now all that time ago?"

"What? You mean the easy way?" They both chuckled at the idea that anything could be easy for them. "The way I see it, we wouldn't have been here at all without… all of it," he replied. "Besides, when have either of us ever gotten anything the easy way?"

She chuckled softly. "Fair enough. What matters is that we got here."

"Have you had any more of those nightmares lately? I don't think you've woken me up in… at least a week, isn't it?"

Pausing, she stopped to consider how much she should tell him. "I can't say I haven't had them, but not every night. And they haven't been as bad. Maybe one of these days they'll actually… stop." A heavy sigh escaped her, and Kurt propped himself up on his elbow, now peering down at her.

"I'm sorry. Why didn't you tell me?" His tone was somewhere between accusatory and worried. It wasn't that she'd been keeping it from him on purpose, exactly. It was just easier.

"Once I wake up, I try to shake them off, not dwell on them," she said with a shrug. "I've gotten used to them, I guess."

"I know. But I wish you wouldn't insist on being so damn independent. Even though it's one of the things I love about you."

"You are aware that you can't have it both ways, right?" Her mouth curled into a smile as she watched him pretend scowl at her.

"Are you calling me unreasonable?" He seemed to be trying not to smile, but he'd never had a very good poker face when it came to Jane.

Now she burst out laughing. "I love you," she sputtered, once she'd regained control of herself enough to speak.

"I love you, too," he replied, already leaning down to kiss her. A few seconds later when he hadn't stopped kissing her, however, she slapped him gently on the arm. When he leaned back in surprise, she was laughing again.

"I thought we came out here to see the stars!"

Kurt gave her a devilish grin, nodding slowly. "Oh, don't worry, I'll make sure of that." She laughed again, as his face moved towards hers. "Besides, how many millions of years have the stars been up there? I think they'll still be there in an hour or so."

"An hour?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"What? You have doubts? Challenge accepted," he murmured as he kissed her again. After that, no words were necessary for quite a while.

Later, though neither of them actually checked the time, they were finally still once again. They alternated between looking at the stars in the sky and each other. Jane's eyes began to droop, as sleep danced nearer and nearer. They were no longer lying _on_ the blanket, exactly, because they were now wrapped up in it, their clothes in a pile nearby.

"How far away did you say the nearest neighbor is?" she asked.

"Half a mile, at least, I think."

"Well, I hope we didn't traumatize anyone's children." The grin on her face, however, said she wasn't all that worried.

"It's getting chilly out here. You ready to go inside?"

"Not quite yet. This moment is just too perfect to leave yet." She held on tighter to him, thinking of everything they'd been through to get there.

"Yes it is." His voice rumbled in his chest, and he leaned down to kiss her forehead as she smiled, gazing back up at the stars.

 _How is it possible? Any of this? Life in general, in the scope of the universe, and this specific existence in particular. Mine. Ours._

When she started shivering, Kurt cleared his throat. "Alright, we're going back inside now. No need to be out here freezing in the back yard when there's a perfectly good house right there."

"Alright," Jane agreed. "But this was fun. I'm glad we did it."

"Me, too." He raised his eyebrows suggestively, and she shook her head at him, unable to stop her laughter.

"Well, yes, that too."

They gradually unrolled from the blanket, the cold air hitting their skin as they threw on their clothes, then grabbed the blanket, their shoes and socks, then made a mad dash for the house. Their feet were quickly chilled from the icy, damp grass, and they arrived at the door, out of breath… only to find it locked.

"Do you have the key?" Kurt asked.

"Me? I thought you had the key!" Jane yelped in surprise. "Was I supposed to?" All she could imagine was having to wait outside in the cold for God knew how many hours. It was not an appealing thought, as much fun as they'd had in the yard up to this point. "Are you sure you don't have it?" She jammed her hands into her pockets to double check, but came up empty.

"As sure as I can be, but if you'd like to check my pockets, please feel free."

There was something about his tone that made her suspicious. She knew him too well, and though no one else seemed to be able to read him, she almost always could.

"Check your pockets, huh?" 

"What? My hands are kind of full here," he shrugged, holding the blanket, his socks and shoes.

"You _could_ just put that stuff down, you know," Jane suggested. "Like I did, so I could check my pockets."

"Where's the fun in that?" he asked with a grin that she quickly found contagious.

"Alright then," she said, stepping closer and pushing her hands into the back pockets of his jeans.

"Well, I've never put keys in those pockets, but I like the way you think," he chuckled. Her hands came out empty, and she shook her head in disappointment. "It was worth a shot," he added. "I applaud the thoroughness of your search." Now she stepped around behind him, threading both hands around him and into his front pockets at the same time. She was surprised when she didn't find a key there – she'd been sure that he was playing a game with her.

 _If we really don't have a key, this is going to suck…_

And then she pulled her hands back out of his empty pockets, remembering the one she hadn't yet checked. There in that tiny pocket within a pocket that most jeans seemed to inexplicably come with, was a single silver key. She pulled it out, shaking her head at him. "You did that on purpose, didn't you?" she asked with a smile.

"Of course not." He tried not to look guilty, but failed, as usual.

"So bad," she muttered as she unlocked the back door.

"And you like it," he said behind her.

She turned back around to look at him over her shoulder, but as she did, the world around her went white. For a split second, she was confused, and wondered what was happening.

As she opened her eyes and found herself in her own bed, however, she blinked the sleepiness away, trying her best to forget her dream. This one had been one of the most vivid, but it didn't upset her as these dreams usually did. Yes, she'd grown accustomed to them, but it wasn't that. After their almost kiss in the bar, she could wake up from this dream without quite the same level of sadness. After all, she now had hope, small as it might be, that she might get another chance. Because of that, this one didn't hurt nearly as much as they once had. Still, it was a shame she had to wake up.

Unlike the other mornings after these dreams, this time she even found herself smiling as she got ready for work. Nothing was certain, of course, but that could also be a good thing. For a long time, she'd felt certain that she would never mean anything to him again. Last night, he'd told her, "All this led me to you." They'd almost kissed. How times had changed.

On their way to the FBI building, Roman had commented that she seemed distracted. He'd asked if everything was okay, and she'd assured him that it was. It had been a long time since she'd actually looked forward to getting to work for a reason other than the chance to take her mind off of what was going on in the rest of her life. Today, it felt the opposite.

As the elevator dinged and the doors opened, she gripped her coffee tightly and rounded the corner. Within seconds, she and Kurt were walking down the hall side by side. "Hey, Kurt." It was hard to explain, but the words came out more easily than they had before. So often lately, talking to him had been such a struggle – less and less so over time, but still not easy. Today, the words fell out of her mouth without a thought. There was no second guessing. She was glad to see him, pure and simple, and she was fairly sure he felt the same way.

"Jane." The tone with which he greeted her, even with only her name, felt warm and familiar.

They talked about Tasha, about Roman, and before they'd gone very far, Kurt had invited her, along with Roman, over for dinner that night. It was a huge step for the two of them – this ease. Finally their baggage was being left in the past.

At the back of her mind, however, was one thing. She hadn't yet told Kurt Roman's secret – that he'd been the one who'd killed Emma Shaw, Taylor's mother. She knew she had to, it was just hard – no, impossible – to find the right moment. There was no right moment to tell someone something you knew would devastate them.

In between keeping up with what was going on with Tasha, who was undercover in prison trying to get to Sandstorm through Parker's girlfriend, Devon, Jane finally worked up the nerve to talk to Kurt. Roman was right. She had to tell him.

She was prepared for his anger. Still, to say that it did not go well was an understatement.

This same thing had happened so many times between them. The back and forth. Things would get better, and then worse. Better, and then worse. Over and over. It would have been funny, if it wasn't so sad. She knew that telling him had been the right thing to do, but it was just another swing backwards in their relationship. She understood his anger, even at her. Maybe she'd been a coward to wait, or selfish for not wanting to jeopardize the fragile peace between them. It would look that way to him, anyway, even though neither of those had been the cause of her hesitation. If only there had been a way to spare him of the inevitable pain, she would've done so in a heartbeat.

She hoped that time would help, and she resigned herself to the backwards swing of the pendulum. So she was surprised when, by the end of the day, she stood at her locker and heard Kurt ambling up behind her. She wasn't surprised when he asked for a raincheck on dinner. Really, she was just glad to see that his anger at her seemed to have abated, at least somewhat.

"Jane." He met her eyes evenly. It wasn't anger she saw in his face, for which she was grateful, but there was still a great deal of pain. "I know that Roman isn't the same person who killed Emma, just like you're not the same person who did all those things in your past, but I can't just flip a switch and get over this. This one's personal."

She felt powerless, and it was one of the feelings she hated most in the world. Her voice came out softly, the only words she could think to say, even though none of them would fix anything. Nothing would. "I wish I could change it. The past. I would do a lot of things very differently."

"Me, too." He paused for a few seconds and they looked at each other, neither one able to repair the damage between them. If it was going to heal, it would have to heal on its own. "Good night, Jane."

He'd already walked past her when she replied. "Good night, Kurt."

 _We've come this far,_ she reminded herself. She could only hope that it would all be okay between them.


	15. All Over Again

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)**_

Kurt looked up from the files spread out on his desk when Jane tapped on the glass door of his office, his face changing from intense concentration to a smile as he waved her in. As she sat down in the chair across from him, however, she did not return the smile. Describing her as tense would be an understatement.

His expression changed quickly, as his brow furrowed with concern. "Jane. Something on your mind?" The twitch at the corner of his lips told her that he wanted to smile at her, but the serious look on her face told him it was not the time.

She sighed heavily, not sure where to start. "Yes." She didn't elaborate, just crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him, frustrated with herself. _It shouldn't be this hard._

Now he did smile at her, leaning back in his chair and waiting. "Okay… Is it about Roman?" He sighed and shook his head. "Because with his detail's statement on record… I know how much you wanted him with you in the safe house, but all things considered right now… Jane, he tried to kill you. I had no choice but to put him back in the cell."

Jane shook her head quickly back and forth. "No, I know that. I'm going to go down and see him next. I can't even process any of that yet. That's… that's not it."

"Alright, so do you want to tell me what it _is_ that you came to talk about?"

He was on the verge of smiling at her, and she was sure that in his shoes, she'd be thinking the same way. She'd burst into his office and then refused to say why she'd come. To everyone besides her, it probably was a little bit funny. She just didn't know where to start.

She looked down at his desk, studying the files that sat open in front of him. He'd been working on something before she'd come in, needing to spill her guts to him. _Come to think of it, this was a really bad idea._ "You know what, never mind. I'm going to get back to work…" Her eyes were on the door as she turned in her chair, in disbelief at her own foolishness. _Why exactly was I hoping to accomplish, anyway?_

Starting to stand, she moved without glancing back at him, but Kurt was faster than she was. Before she'd taken more than a few steps, he was standing in front of her. "Jane, slow down. Talk to me." He laid his hands on her arms, halfway between her shoulders and her elbows, staring into her face.

Her focus was somewhere on his shirt, and she forced herself to breathe in and out, slowly relaxing. There was just something about his touch that calmed her down. He'd had that effect on her pretty much as long as they'd known each other – well, most of the time. She couldn't exactly look back fondly on all of their time together. But they'd fought their way back from what they'd thought was unforgiveable between them more than once. She would never have guessed that they'd be standing where they were at that moment, but there they were.

"Give me one minute to clear my desk," Kurt was saying, "And then let's go somewhere else to talk. Because it's pretty obvious whatever it is, it's a big deal. Alright?"

She finally met his eyes and nodded, and he reluctantly let go of her arms. In less than thirty seconds, the files were back in the file cabinet and it was locked, and Kurt was beside her again. "Come on," he said quietly, even though they were the only two in the room.

Jane's arms remained tightly folded across her chest, but the feeling of his hand landing lightly on her back made the knot in her stomach loosen ever so slightly.

He steered her to the elevator, and they got in without a word, riding quietly to the ground floor. Without discussion, it seemed that their feet steered them both in the same direction – the same coffee shop nearby that they'd been to a thousand other times, thought they usually took it 'to go.' It was the middle of a work day, so there was no line, and they walked right up to the counter.

"You still taking your coffee the same way?" he asked, to which she simply nodded. The fact that he had to ask spoke volumes about the state of things between them. Their relationship wasn't broken, per se, but it wasn't quite mended, either.

Kurt ordered for both of them. It was as if her voice had dried up and blown away.

Minutes later, when they had their coffee and were installed at a table in the far corner, away from the few other patrons, Kurt cleared his throat. "You okay, Jane?"

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have made such a big deal about this…" Her head was shaking back and forth without her permission, and she bit her lip.

"Well, it just seemed like a conversation you'd rather have outside of the office."

She smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile. It was more an acknowledgement that he was right. "Yeah, you're right about that." _He always could read me pretty easily. At least… before._

"So, you wanna tell me what's on your mind?" He peered at her kindly. He would wait, she knew, however long she needed him to.

Staring down at her coffee, she nodded and prepared herself to force the words out. "I know this is going to sound… weird, but, well… I've been having these… dreams." Her fingers tightened around her cup, and she looked up to study his reaction so far.

"That's not really my department, you know. Did you want to talk to Dr. Sun? Because I can—"

But she cut him off. "Dreams about you. You and me. Us."

"Us?" He looked confused – of course he did. She knew very well how crazy it must sound.

"Yeah." That time her voice barely came out in a whisper, and she focused on looking down, unable to meet his eyes.

"And what were we doing?" Despite his initial surprise, she could tell his curiosity had been piqued. When she finally raised her gaze to meet his, there was half a smile on his face.

"They're always different. Your apartment. My apartment. Central Park. On a plane. At the beach. Here in the coffee shop. Sarah's wedding…"

"Sarah's wedding?" Kurt echoed, his smile growing. "And who'd she marry in this dream? I'm sure she'd be interested to know this."

The look of horror on her face made him shake his head quickly. "Jane, I'm not going to tell her. I'm just curious."

Jane relaxed again, and tried to remember. "You know what? I don't know. He wasn't part of the dream. It was us getting ready, then we were at the reception. We were sitting down and I had my feet on your lap because I'd twisted my ankle dancing, and you were holding an ice pack on it. Oh, and some of Sarah's friends were giving me nasty looks." Kurt raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

"And then Sarah came over to talk to us. She looked so beautiful. Really, it's a shame you missed it. It was a fun evening." Jane smiled sadly. She hadn't realized that she still remembered that dream in such vivid detail. It _had_ been a lovely evening… it just hadn't been real.

"I'm sure _you_ looked beautiful, too." The words surprised her, and this time she fought the urge to look away from him, smiling slightly. "Do you remember any others?" he asked.

"There was one where I had to get an MRI. There was one where we were laying outside at night watching the stars. There was one in your apartment but, without any furniture… There was one on an airplane. Some others, I think… but those are the ones I remember the best."

It was only then that she realized that Kurt was watching her with a mixture of amazement and sadness.

"Anyway, I don't even know why it seemed so important to tell you this. I just…"

"So it's been going on for a while now, then."

She looked away and nodded. "Yeah."

"How long?"

"Since… since not long after… After the black site."

"Wow. We weren't really even talking then."

What she'd thought was a laugh came out of her as something much less happy, and she shook her head. "No, it was basically a reminder of what I'd lost. All over again, every morning."

Kurt was staring at her now. She wasn't looking at him, but she could feel it. "I'm sorry, Jane." The pain in his voice made her blink rapidly, unable to meet his eyes.

"No, it's fine. I don't know why I felt so compelled to tell you, I just…" She shook her head, and finally looked back up at him. "I guess I just… I don't know. Maybe I just needed to tell _someone_."

"I'm glad you told me," he said softly. For a few seconds, they just sat and stared at each other across the table, two people with so much history, such intense feelings between them who had no idea what to do about it all. She rested her hands flat on the table, staring down at them. _Now that I've told him, what do I say?_

To her surprise, Kurt reached out and covered one of her hands with one of his own. She stared at his hand, drinking in the warmth of it. _If I'm perfectly still, maybe I can convince time to freeze right here._

Time didn't freeze. The noises of the coffee shop went on around them, and as she breathed in and out, Kurt's hand held onto hers a little bit tighter. "You done?" he asked a few minutes later. She glanced into her cup to confirm that she had indeed finished her coffee.

"Yeah."

"You ready to get out of here?"

She smiled, glanced up at him and nodded. "Yeah."

Outside, they took slow steps, side by side, neither of them speaking. Jane stared at the sidewalk ahead of them, and glanced around everywhere except at the man beside her. She honestly had no idea what she could possibly talk to him about after what she'd just confessed.

She was surprised once again when she felt him take her hand, squeezing gently, then swinging their arms between them. A smile worked its way across her face, and she turned to look at him, suddenly feeling shy. It didn't matter that she didn't know what any of it meant. All she knew was that she felt lighter than she had in a long time.

As she looked back at Kurt, however, everything got brighter. For a second she thought it was just the bright sunlight and the fact that he was smiling at her. But no, it was more than that, and all too soon, everything around her turned white until the only thing she could see was Kurt's silhouette. She had to squint to try to see him at all.

"I'm sorry, Jane," he said, and then he, too, faded before her eyes. She felt herself falling to her knees there on what had been the sidewalk just seconds ago, but now was just a patch of empty whiteness.

And then, like always, she was back in her bed, breathing fast, tangled in the sheets. Alone.

It all came back to her then. The night before, Roman had remembered that she'd ZIPed him, and he'd attacked her with the largest knife they had. She hadn't wanted to hurt him, but she'd had to defend herself… Thankfully his detail had been there to assist, and they'd dragged him back to the FBI building. She'd gone over there herself, but Kurt had told her to go home, that she could see him in the morning once everyone had cooled down.

She hadn't thought she'd be able to sleep, but apparently she'd been wrong. And now the realization crept over her. Her huge confession to Kurt? It had all been a dream. Trying to laugh it off, she found herself on the verge of tears instead. Everything was such a mess. In reality, Kurt was still upset with her for keeping Roman's involvement in Emma Shaw's death from him for as long as she did. They'd taken ten steps back again, just when they'd been moving forward.

 _Take a breath,_ she told herself. _Now focus on one thing at a time. Get up. Get ready. Go to work. Don't think any farther ahead than that for now._

She followed her own advice, and before she knew it, she was peering through thick glass at a brother who now hated her, and told her in so many words before demanding that she leave. _I was only trying to help._ It didn't matter.

Kurt was in the hallway outside the cell, and she let him know in no uncertain terms that she blamed him for what was happening. After all, it had been Kurt who'd insisted that they lie to Roman about who had ZIPed him.

From there, the day slid quickly downhill. Pellington promised to have Roman in a black site before the end of the day. Parker's intel led Jane, Kurt and a convoy of back up to a mock-up of their office, where they realized just how much danger everyone back at SIOC was. The phones were jammed, and all they could do was race back, hoping they weren't too late to warn them... or to save them.

Many hours later, bombs diffused and most of the danger averted, Shepherd and Roman had escaped and the screens room was shattered. Pellington was dead, Zapata had been shot, and federal buildings in Boston and San Francisco had been brought down by Shepherd. Her mother. When she'd stood in front of Roman that morning, Jane hadn't thought the day could have gotten worse, but she'd been so wrong it almost made her laugh.

She sat down on the narrow bed in the cell where she now had to sleep for her own protection, empty. Even her safe house wasn't anywhere near safe. Not from Shepherd. If the woman could force her way into the FBI, then really, nowhere was safe.

Somehow she could feel Kurt's concern radiating off of him. Their fight the day before and their disagreement that morning had evaporated in the face of the horror of the day, which was so much bigger than yesterday's pain.

"And my family is responsible. All of us."

"No," Kurt said emphatically, now sitting beside her on the bed.

But Jane would not be talked out of her idea that she shared responsibility for what had happened that day. "Yes. Me, Shepherd, and Roman."

After all, while she didn't remember it, she had been instrumental in this plan, at the beginning. "Kurt, what if it's only a matter of time before I become like that?"

He was close beside her, his hand dropping onto her knee and his thumb moving gently back and forth. Jane was terrified, but for some reason she didn't understand, Kurt didn't look afraid.

"We're not our families."

The words should have been reassuring to her, she knew. And while she in no way equated Kurt with his father, the murderer, somehow she could not separate herself from her own family of terrorists.

 _What a pair we are,_ she thought miserably, turning away as her eyes fell closed in despair.

"Jane." Kurt's voice was insistent as he moved closer to her. "I know your heart. And that is not who you are." His hand left her knee, and now came to rest gently over her heart. Almost immediately, her hand landed on his, grasping firmly. She was adrift in despair, and she desperately needed something to hold onto. More than just something, she needed him.

They stared into each other's eyes for a few long seconds before she looked away, exhausted by the intensity between them. When his hand moved up to her neck, his thumb resting on her cheek, however, she looked back up into his eyes. They froze there for an instant before the same magnetic attraction that had always seemed to pull them back together – no matter how slowly – now moved their faces towards each other. Her bottom lip shook with emotion, but only for a second before it met his.

This kiss had been a long time coming. So much had happened between them – so much emotion, both positive and negative, and it was all rolled into one gentle kiss that last only seven seconds. That was when the Secret Service showed up, insisting that Kurt go with them for reasons of national security.

It was almost laughable, the timing of this. Somehow for as long as she'd known Kurt, there had always been someone or something pulling them apart. Whether it was a coworker interrupting them or the fact that they had to stop and save the world, it was always something.

She told him to go – of course he had to. This was far more important, and their work was nowhere near done. Shepherd and Roman were still out there. She wanted nothing more in the world than to grab onto him and not let go, but it didn't work that way.

"Kurt, you have to go. It's okay," she told him, looking deep into his eyes. Only then did his resolve not to go with the men soften, and she watched as he hesitantly accepted the idea. Kurt stood up, their hands still clasped, and they did not let go until they had to, as he walked past her. She sat there on the bed, feeling both empty and full at the same time.

 _It's my responsibility to stop this, but what can I possibly do?_ she wondered desperately. She took a deep breath, trying to reassure herself the way Kurt had just done.

" _We're not our families… That's not who you are."_

The words bounced around in her head, and she closed her eyes, once again overwhelmed. She would stop all this. Didn't she owe them all that much?

And then she remembered the way Kurt had looked at her, as if she was the most precious thing in the world, and her heart pounded in her chest. The fact that they had both betrayed each other so completely, no matter their intentions, but had ended up in that moment, with that look between them… well, that alone was proof that miracles could happen. And while she had no illusions about life being fair or people getting what they deserved, maybe it wasn't impossible that they could stop Shepherd's madness before it was too late.

The day certainly hadn't been a dream come true, but her reasons to hope were slowly multiplying.


	16. We Both Are

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)**_

"Let's go out for breakfast," Kurt suggested with a yawn. "The place around the corner from your old place. It's a nice morning for a walk."

"That's a pretty good walk," Jane replied, raising her eyebrows teasingly.

"It's supposed to be beautiful outside. We can drive, though, if you want. We just haven't been there lately. They must miss you by now. Besides, we don't want them to go out of business." He kept his expression serious, and she just shook her head at him, a smile creeping across her face.

"Very funny. It's true though, it's been weeks. Okay, let's go. I'll just go throw some clothes on." They'd been lazing around in pajamas and bathrobes, and now Jane jumped up and walked into the bedroom without another word. Under two minutes later she was back, dressed and ready.

"That was fast," Kurt said with a grin.

"Hurry up. Go get dressed."

"I'm going, I'm going. Sheesh, you're so bossy all of a sudden." They exchanged a grin, and Kurt stood up to walk to the bedroom. Jane followed, leaning against the door frame and watching his every move.

"May I help you?" he asked.

"What? I'm just standing here watching you. Aren't I allowed?" Her eyes were dancing with laughter and she tried unsuccessfully to keep a straight face.

"Because you want me to hurry up, or because you want to watch me change?" The corners of his mouth twitched in amusement.

"Who says it's one or the other? Can't it be both?" she asked. "Now hurry up. Off with the clothes."

Kurt chuckled, shaking his head as he dropped the pajamas he'd only recently put on onto the side of the bed. He pulled clothes out of the dresser, but paused before he pulled them on, giving her a devilish grin. Jane, however, was already shaking her head.

"Oh no you don't. We're going to get breakfast first. You're not going to distract me. Not yet, anyway. When we get back… that's a different story."

With a shrug, Kurt pulled on track pants and a t-shirt, laughing quietly. "I know, I know. Nothing's going to get between you and those croissants."

"Nope," she agreed with a grin. "Now hurry up."

Now dressed, he walked over to the doorway to meet her. Instead of moving out of his way, she remained in place, watching him come closer and now standing up straight. His hands went to her waist, slowly moving around to her back and pulling her closer. "I thought you were in a hurry," he mumbled.

Standing on tiptoe, she kissed him firmly, but pulled back seconds later and watched his expression change. "Just a preview for later. Now, food."

He chuckled, pulling her tighter and kissing her hair. "Yes, dear."

In the elevator, she put her arm around his waist and leaned her head against his shoulder. With all the obstacles that life had thrown at them, the fact that they'd ended up together seemed impossible, but here they were. Letting out a happy sigh, she felt the rumble of his laughter before she heard it.

His arm had snaked around her as well, tugging her closer. "It's been too long since we had a day off. I've missed you."

Tilting her head to look up at him, she watched him in amusement as the elevator doors opened on the ground floor. "We work together. We live together. You see me more than you don't see me."

"And as much as I love saving the world with you, I prefer this," he replied without missing a beat.

"Fair enough." Her smile grew until it had spread across her whole face, and they walked across the lobby toward the front door. She'd walked the same path many times over the years. Nervously. Self-consciously. Excitedly. In tears. Hurriedly. Angrily, even. And then there were the times, like now, when she'd felt less like she was walking and more like she was floating on a cloud. The problem with that feeling was that it made her nervous – so many times before, it had preceded one tragedy or another.

The air outside was cool and crisp. From the east came filtered sunlight, a growing brightness, but the sun wouldn't be overhead for several more hours. Though this block was quiet, the sounds of car and people – of the city waking up – were audible from around the corner. This block, however, seemed to still be asleep.

"It's like we have the city to ourselves, almost," Jane murmured.

Kurt chuckled softly. "Maybe just the block, but I'll take it."

They walked in companionable silence. It had been a long time since they'd had a leisurely day, and they took their time, stopping to look into shop windows as they went. Jane swore she discovered something new every time she walked through this neighborhood.

After working up a good appetite with their walk, they arrived at the bakery. Once upon a time when Jane had lived in a safe house – the second one – this had been the closest breakfast place. The fact that she'd discovered it with Kurt made it all the more special. The red metal tables were still outside in front of the window, and a few people were inside, staring into the glass case and pointing at what they wanted.

"Mmmmm, it smells so good!" sighed happily, gulping in the deliciousness in the air even before they'd opened the door. "I could live here. How in the world do I ever leave this place?"

"Not voluntarily, most of the time," Kurt said quietly, grinning in amusement. "Good thing you have me to drag you home."

"You could just stay here with me," she suggested, and they both chuckled. Something about their first day off in a very long time and the beautiful morning combined with the delicious smells had created a giddiness. Or maybe that was just because they were happy to be there together.

They ordered coffee, and then chose several pastries at random, not giving too much thought to it. This was what they usually did – try an assortment of things they hadn't tried before, and if they ran out of new things to try, they opted for something they hadn't had for a while. It was left over from the days when Jane had been working hard to try as many things as possible, making up for time that had literally been lost.

Minutes later, seated at one of the red tables outside, they drank in the delicious morning along with their breakfast. "This was the best idea you've had all week," Jane told him.

He frowned at her for a second before asking, "So does that mean you don't think my ideas were very good this week, or that this one was just that fantastic?" His mouth betrayed the seriousness he was attempting as a hint of a smile appeared.

"This one was just that fantastic," she replied in between bites, quickly taking another one. After another sip of coffee she added, "I've missed this place, and I hadn't even realized it."

"It always reminds me of the first time we were here," he said, and for a second he was swept up in the memory.

"If I try not to remember it too clearly, I can almost forget how miserable I was, covered in poison ivy," Jane replied. "Thank goodness for the company."

"Still traumatized, huh? Even years later?"

"I'm always going to be traumatized from that battle with poison ivy," she promised. "It was that bad."

Kurt shrugged, nodding. "Well, I was glad it gave me an excuse to hang out with you for a couple weeks."

"Oh, I was too. But I was the one who was incredibly itchy and uncomfortable."

"True." The glint in his eyes told her that he was still remembering.

For a second, she got lost in the memory as well. And then, as often happened, the mostly happy memories of the weeks she'd spent with Kurt recovering from poison ivy gave way to other, far less happy memories of so many things that had come after it.

"Hey," she heard Kurt say. "Where are you, Jane?"

Tuning back in, she smiled as she tried to push away the thoughts that had suddenly clouded her mind, focusing on the man in front of her. His expression was intense as he stared into her eyes.

Her smile had deserted her while she'd been lost in thought, but now it was back, even as those other memories left a trail of sadness in their wake. _If only, if only, if only… But I could do that all day. It doesn't matter. I ended up here, didn't I?_

 _Did you?_ a voice asked.

She felt her smile give way to panic. What did the voice mean? Wasn't she here? Where else would she be?

"Jane?" Kurt was asking her, but at that moment everything started to spin. Faster and faster, until she put her head in her hands to try to make the spinning stop. _No,_ she thought. _Not again._

It was, of course. A dream. The next thing she knew she was waking up back in her own bed again, surprised to her find her hands covering her face, just as they'd been in her dream. Removing them slowly, she noticed that they were damp, as was her face. _Tears? Or sweat? Or both?_ It almost didn't matter. How many times had she woken up this way? It felt like a million by now. And no, things weren't bad between them anymore, but...

Her cheeks filled with color as she remembered the day before. Despite the fact that they'd almost died and her own mother had almost destroyed the world – or at least the part of it where they lived – at the end of that wreck of a day, she had ended up with Kurt. And she'd been fraught with guilt and despair, and even though she hadn't wanted to listen, he'd looked into her eyes with absolute certainty and told her that she was nothing like her family. That he knew her. And when he'd kissed her, it had been unlike their other kisses – it had been so much more.

And then, predictably, national security had required him to leave immediately with the Secret Service agents who had arrived almost the second they'd finally been pulled together. It would have been funny if it wasn't so damn frustrating. Since last night, nothing. No word from him. All things considered, she felt like worrying about him was justified.

Just like that, there wasn't a tired bone in her body. No, there was too much to do. Besides, the longer she went without hearing from Kurt, the more on edge she became. _Where exactly does the Secret Service take people for the sake of national security, anyway?_

Despite having dreamed in excruciating detail of having breakfast, Jane wasn't hungry. She grabbed coffee on her way to work, and wasn't sure she could keep even that much down. Upon arriving at SIOC, she was shocked all over again. Though she'd seen the damage first-hand the day before, it hit her like a ton of bricks all over again to see the place that had been her second home for so long destroyed so completely. Yes, they'd stopped Shepherd from bringing down the building, but they'd failed on so many other fronts. It was overwhelming.

She knew that Kurt would be in touch when he could, but she couldn't help herself – she called and left him another voicemail. If she at least knew he was getting the messages, she'd feel better, but she didn't even have that much.

Hanging up the phone and listening to the broken glass crackle under her feet, Jane was surprised when an unfamiliar woman approached her, introducing herself as Eleanor Hirst. The new FBI Director was warm and sympathetic, and Jane was surprised when she offered her the chance to relocate. Of course, Jane's first thought was Kurt – she didn't particularly want to relocate. But Hirst's words stayed with her long after the conversation ended.

"I think you need to ask yourself – what do you want?"

She'd never been asked that before, and while she thought she knew, she didn't even know if what she wanted was possible. It wasn't enough for _her_ to want it. He had to wait it, too.

A conversation with Patterson didn't make things easier. The blonde wasn't her normal optimistic self – which wasn't surprising, all things considered. They'd lost so much at once. Like Hirst, Patterson also gave Jane pause for thought.

"Well, you deserve to do what you want."

"What if I want this?" Jane asked.

"How do you know if you've never done anything else? We can't all stay here forever. Reade's talking about teaching, and Weller… he's gonna be a dad in a couple months. And his kid is living in Colorado, so…"

"You think Kurt'll move?"

"I mean, I would." Patterson apologized for telling Jane what she didn't want to hear, but Jane barely even heard the words. Everything had already changed. It made sense that Kurt would move to be closer to his daughter. Why wouldn't he? She would never dream of getting in the way of that. No, that was how things were supposed to be. What she wanted was secondary. After all, she wanted him to be happy more than anything else… no matter what sacrifice it required.

Things moved quickly after that. Kurt and the team had separately discovered that Phase Two wasn't over, and the stress of the prior day resumed. When Kurt stepped off the elevator, Jane didn't care who was watching, running across the bullpen to hug him.

Within hours, she found herself with Kurt on the jet, heading for DC. They sat across the table from each other, and Jane couldn't help but feel that it was all just a little too surreal. She was so distracted, she forgot her fear of flying.

"Patterson told me that you're thinking of leaving." She hadn't been expecting to have this conversation today, not even having had enough time to think about it herself, but apparently it was happening now.

"Uh, maybe." She kept her eyes on him, searching for some sign of what he thought about that.

"You should go somewhere fun."

Her stomach dropped, but she managed to keep her face from showing her disappointment. "You think I should go?" Holding her voice steady took a Herculean effort, but she managed. She didn't know what she'd expected, but it wasn't this.

"You didn't choose this life, Jane. This team will miss you. It's not fair to keep you here."

She wanted to protest, but speaking of fair, that wouldn't be fair to him. Besides, if he was going to leave anyway, what did it matter? "I hear California's pretty nice. Well, what about you?"

"L.A.?"

"That would be fun…" She took a nervous breath, then pushed out her real question. "But what about Colorado?" Patterson had mentioned the possibility of him moving there, but how did he feel about it?

"I'll visit there a lot."

"You should take your own advice. Denver has a field office, right? You're allowed to be happy, you know." She said the words sincerely, and she meant them. Still, she felt her heart breaking at the same time.

"We both are."

For a few seconds, it was as though the oxygen had been sucked out of the cabin, and Jane did her best to reign in her emotions. She was not going to make this into a big deal. What Kurt chose to do with his life was his decision, and she would never interfere with his happiness. He was too important to her to do that. He needed to be near his daughter more than anything else.

 _But what about your happiness?_ a voice asked her.

 _After everything I've done? I can't be selfish,_ she told the voice. _If I really care about him, I have to let him go._

The day continued at breakneck pace – there's something about thinking you and everyone else is going to die if you don't succeed that distracts you from the passage of time. Amazingly, they captured Shepherd, and the team's efforts stopped the detonation that would've wiped out the eastern seaboard. However, when it came down to it, Jane couldn't shoot Roman. Kurt would've done it for her in a heartbeat, but he'd been busy with Shepherd, and by the time he came outside it was too late. Roman was walking away.

Kurt jumped down from the ambulance with every intention of stopping Roman, but his injured leg gave out. Watching him roll onto his back in pain, unable to move, Jane forgot all about the brother she hadn't been able to shoot.

"Kurt, hey. Say something."

"Jane… Don't move to California. Stay here… with me." His eyes were closed and his voice had already been labored, but now it dropped to a whisper. He struggled to open his eyes just enough to look into hers. "I love you, Jane. I love you."

The words were difficult to process. On the plane, she'd been so bowled over by the idea that he thought she should leave, but here he was now, telling her to _stay?_ As she leaned close to him, her hand under his head, she waited for the words to make sense.

 _He loves me?_ If there were any words she'd never thought she'd hear, it was those. Those words repeated themselves in an endless loop in her head, closer and closer around her heart as they worked relentlessly to wear down the wall she'd built there. It was impossible. But no, he's said it – twice.

There was momentary silence on the comms, before Patterson's voice crackled in her ear. "Jane, backup's on the way. And an ambulance. Are you guys okay? How's Weller?"

Jane put her free hand to his neck for his pulse. "He passed out, but his pulse is strong."

"Okay, just hang on." There was something in Patterson's voice that she'd never heard before, but Jane ignored it. After all, Kurt's words were still working their way through her, and unless they were in immediate danger, she wasn't going to waste her energy on anything or anyone but Kurt.

"Kurt," she whispered. She didn't know what to say, and he couldn't hear her anyway, and she felt tears gathering in her eyes. _Don't die,_ she thought. Between them, it was another way of saying "I love you," even if they didn't quite realize it.

Her left hand remained under his head, and her right hand came to rest on his cheek. Slowly, her thumb moved back and forth over the thick stubble, and her breath hitched in her chest.

" _Jane… Don't move to California. Stay here… with me… I love you, Jane. I love you."_

Tears were rolling down her cheeks now, pushed out by the force of far too many emotions hitting her at once. He had to be okay. He _had_ to.

"Jane, help should be there in less than two minutes," Patterson said in her ear. Jane nodded, even though Patterson couldn't see her. It was all she could manage at that moment.

When the EMTs showed up, Jane reluctantly stepped back and let them work. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Shepherd being taken into custody. She knew she should've felt relieved, but with her mother, it was never that simple. Not because she had some sort of conflicted feelings about the woman – no, Shepherd was responsible for far too many of the terrible things that had happened in Jane's life. What it came down to was that Jane was too emotionally drained to spare any emotions for Shepherd. They'd caught her. That was all that mattered for now.

Jane rode in the ambulance with Kurt to the hospital, holding his hand and focused on nothing but watching him and breathing in and out. Everything else was a blur, secondary. When they got to the hospital, she was sent to the waiting room. For more than an hour, she paced. The rest of the team arrived, hugging her and trying to get her to sit still, but to no avail. Finally, after what felt like all night, she was told she could see him.

Her heart threatened to beat out of her chest as she entered his room, and she was relieved to see him sitting up in bed, smiling weakly at her.

"Hey." His voice was raspy and tired, but his face said everything else that he didn't have the energy for.

"Hey," she replied, walking directly to the chair beside the bed and moving it until it touched the side, folding her legs in front of her. Sitting as close to him as humanly possible, she reached out and took his hand. His fingers tightened around hers, and he lifted her hand to his face, kissing the back of it and then leaving it there against his face for a few seconds. Only reluctantly did he let it go. Propping her elbows on the bed beside him, Jane steered their joined hands until they were pressed against her forehead, tilting her head down.

There she sat, breathing in and out slowly, her eyes falling closed. His fingers squeezed hers weakly, and her left hand joined her right to clasp his hand against her forehead. She knew he was watching her, but she couldn't bring herself to look at him, or even to move, overwhelmed as she was. They stayed that way, silently, for a long time. It was all they needed – each other.


	17. You May Have To Pinch Me

_**Disclaimer: I do not own Blindspot. More like it's the other way around… I've come to realize that THEY own ME. :)**_

She heard the beeping before she actually woke up. She hadn't actually meant to fall asleep at Kurt's bedside, but she'd done it anyway, and the muscles in her back and neck were now screaming in protest. As she blinked groggily and glanced at the corner of the window not covered by the curtains, she saw that it was still dark outside.

 _What time is it?_

"Ms. Doe." An unfamiliar voice was saying somewhere nearby.

Jane looked up at Kurt, who was asleep with a hint of a smile on his face. Before she turned to investigate who was talking to her, she smiled up at him. His expression was so peaceful.

Turning slowly, her eyes came to rest on a nurse in blue scrubs. "Sorry to bother you, Ms. Doe, but we've been instructed to check you out for any injuries. I've been told you had quite the day yourself, even if you're in better shape than Mr. Weller here."

Jane's eyes quickly went back to him, studying him worriedly. They didn't exactly have a great track record in hospitals. It seemed that almost without exception, members of their team either checked themselves out against the advice of medical professions before they should, or were attacked by armed gunmen before they could leave. Therefore, she couldn't be sure he'd be safe without her.

"He'll be fine," the nurse said soothingly. "And I see in his chart that he's usually… a little reluctant to wait to be discharged. We're going to be checking on him more regularly than usual, and we'll let him know where you are when he wakes up. Alright?" The nurse was looking at Jane expectantly, but she still wasn't sure. "With any luck, you'll be done before he wakes up," the other woman added.

To Jane's disappointment, she was not done by the time Kurt woke up, however. While she really hadn't thought there was anything major wrong with her, the medical staff disagreed, and wanted to keep her for observation. "At least for a few more hours," they told her. To Jane, scrapes and sprains, as she thought of her injures, were nothing serious. The pain in her ribs? Not a big deal. The dizziness that lingered in her head? Absolutely not a problem. But the doctor frowned at her when she expressed that opinion.

 _They just don't understand,_ she thought in annoyance. _If I can survive and escape from a black site, I don't need a hospital stay for a few scrapes and sprains._

"Ms. Doe, somehow I get the feeling that you're one of those people who doesn't really do 'taking it easy.' Would that be a fair characterization?" the doctor asked patiently. Jane saw where this was going, but played along anyway.

"Yes," she grumbled.

"As I suspected. Which means that if I discharge you now, you're unlikely to, say, take a few days off to rest?"

"Unlikely. Yes."

"I just want to keep you for a few more hours, to make sure you're stable. No sense rushing back into things and collapsing. Besides, I'm told you only really had a little nap in Mr. Weller's room. You may as well get some sleep, and that way everybody wins."

Jane thought about this carefully. She didn't like being here any longer than she had to, and she wanted to get back and check on Kurt. At the same time, fatigue had finally caught up with her, and enough parts of her ached that she knew she should rest. After all, who knew what might happen next? It would appear that at that moment, the world didn't need saving, but that could change at any moment.

"Can I go back and see Kurt?" she asked.

"Not right now," the doctor said. "But I'll have someone check and see how he's doing, and we'll make sure that one of you makes it to the other one soon, whoever's discharged first. How about that?" His brown eyes were fixed on hers, waiting for an answer.

She sighed heavily, unsatisfied with the answer but unusually agreeable. "Okay."

"Good. Now get some rest, please," he told her as he departed. Jane nodded weakly, even though the doctor was already gone. In seconds, her eyes had closed against her will. She really was too exhausted to even think of leaving. Hopefully by the time she woke up, they'd tell her she was cleared to go.

The next thing she knew, she was standing smack dab in the middle of the bustling crowds of Times Square, in front of the Toys R Us that she knew for a fact was no longer there. This was the exact spot where she'd crawled out of the bag.

"Jane." His voice was music to her ears, and she turned around to see Kurt standing close to her – close enough that when she smiled uncertainly, he reached out and took her hand, each of them stepping closer and watching the other carefully. Now her expression turned self-conscious, and she looked away. She knew it wasn't real, but she didn't care. The whisper of his voice telling her that he loved her floated through her mind, and she smiled up at dream-Kurt in front of her. There was no longer any harm in enjoying this.

"What are we doing here?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I don't know. It's your dream." They both chuckled, gazing at each other fondly.

"So, you don't want me to move to California, huh?" she asked jokingly.

"Absolutely not," he said. "I don't want you to move anywhere. At least, not without me. And truth be told, I don't want to move to California. It's fun to visit, but I'm an East Coast guy."

She stared up at him, trying to tell herself that this was all real. Well, not the dream she was currently having, but the fact that Kurt Weller had told her that he loved her the day before. When she thought about it, she couldn't help the goofy grin spreading slowly across her face. It was completely impossible… except that it had happened. In fact, thanks to their comms, the whole team had gotten to hear it.

"What are you smiling about?" he asked, stepping closer. He let go of her hand, and now his arms circled around her waist.

"You."

"What about me?"

If she didn't know better, she'd think he was teasing her on purpose. _He probably just wants to hear you say it._ She screwed up her face and somehow managed to smile and look annoyed at the same time – teasingly, of course. He grinned that full face, little boy grin that she loved so much, and her features relaxed into a shy smile. Slowly, her hands moved up his arms to his shoulders, where they paused. Both of their grins were gone, and they were staring intensely into each other's eyes. Her hands moved a little farther, onto the back of his neck, where her fingertips massaged the soft ends of his short hair.

"Everything about you."

"Wow. You sure about that? Everything?"

She burst out laughing then, taking half a step back just because of the force of her laughter. Kurt was laughing too, even as someone in the crowd bumped into them, apologizing quickly. He pulled her tighter so that she didn't lose her balance, tugging her closer until he was kissing her forehead.

"Jane…"

She tilted her eyes upwards, focusing on his face. _That face. This man. This impossible life of ours._

As she opened her mouth to say something, however, she heard his voice again. It echoed as if the sound had traveled across a great distance. His mouth hadn't moved, though, and he couldn't be any closer to her.

With a sigh, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him, just a quick peck on dream-Kurt's lips before he disintegrated in front of her. _It's okay,_ she reminded herself, even though the feeling was disconcerting. This time, she knew what was happening.

She was surrounded by white, as if she'd stumbled into a bright empty room with no windows, doors or furniture. "Jane…" There was the voice again. It sounded a little closer now, but still a whisper. She smiled, knowing exactly who that voice belonged to and what it meant.

When her eyes fluttered open, she found Kurt perched on the edge of her bed. He was holding her hand and smiling at her. "Jane, hey…" he whispered.

"Hey yourself," she managed quietly. "How are you feeling?" He was dressed in his own clothes, she noticed.

"Sore, but doing better. They cleared me to go home. I'll stick around here and wait for you, though…"

"I'd love that, but you should go home and take a nap. Just because they released you doesn't mean you don't need your rest." The look in her eyes said that there would be no argument.

"Only if you promise me something," he said, leaning closer to her.

"And what's that?" Her lips were tilting upwards of their own accord, and the intensity with which he was suddenly looking at her made her slightly giddy.

"Check in with me every couple hours. And let me know when you're discharged. And, if there's any kind of shoot-out, you don't try to take on the bad guys single-handedly."

"Hospitals do tend to be kind of dangerous for us, don't they?" Jane's eyes danced in amusement, and his serious expression as he waited for her to agree to his terms only made her smile harder.

"Fine. If that's what it takes to get you to go home and rest, I can do that. Well, I can at least promise the first two. The third one…" When his eyes narrowed at her, she couldn't help but grin even harder. "But you," she added, "have to promise to go _home_ and rest, and not go straight to work."

"The thought never crossed my mind," Kurt replied innocently.

Jane sputtered with laughter. "Liar." She shook her head, gazing at him in awe. _I do not deserve him._

"What?" he asked.

"You."

"What about me?"

"Everything about you." She stole the words directly from her dream, leaning her face closer to his until the tips of their noses made contact.

"Alright Ms. Doe, I'm here to take your vitals," said a nurse who had entered the room without them noticing, thanks to their focus on each other.

"That's my cue," he whispered, before leaning the rest of the way forward to kiss her quickly on the lips and then move back, standing stiffly. His movements and the expression on his face gave away the fact that while he may have been discharged, he was a long way from healed. "I'll talk to you later?"

"Yes," Jane agreed.

"And maybe I'll see you later?" he asked hopefully.

Once again, her smile filled her face from one side to the other. "I'd like that."

He got as far as the doorway before he stopped and turned to smile at her. The nurse had already begun her work, but Jane's eyes remained on Kurt. They gave each other the same smile, but neither of them said anything. They didn't need to. It was all there in their eyes. And then he was gone, and she relaxed back against the pillow, closing her eyes as the nurse did whatever it was she'd needed to do.

The hours passed slowly but uneventfully. Jane alternated between watching TV and napping. She wanted nothing more to leave the hospital, but at the same time, her exhaustion told her that she really should just wait until the doctor told her she could go. They'd had to redo one of her tests – she didn't even know which one – and were awaiting the results. Better safe than sorry, they'd said.

She had a lot of time to think. They'd stopped Shepherd, which was major. Once again, they'd saved the world. She felt a pang when she thought of Roman, knowing the terrible things he'd done and the consequences of letting him go. But he was her brother, and she just hadn't been able to shoot him. That would have been the only way to bring him in.

Closing her eyes, once again she saw the black and white flashes of memory. She saw herself and Roman as children. On one hand, it wasn't his fault. On the other, she wished she could have been stronger.

The day passed this way, with Jane drifting in and out of sleep, sometimes focusing on the TV and sometimes not. Everything seemed to be taking longer than it should, but she couldn't worry about it. For once, she was too worn out.

Just after lunch time, she was given the all clear. She texted Kurt to let him know, and on a hunch asked him where he was. There was a pause, and when he replied, she could hear the sheepishness loud and clear in his text as he admitted that he'd gone to the office. Hirst had sent him to their medical team, he said, to be sure he was fit for duty.

Laughing out loud at the predictability of this man, she felt sore in a few places that she hadn't known were sore. With a groan, she stood up and gathered her clothes, got dressed and got her things together. She was ready to go home and take a shower, at least, and then go from there. As much like Kurt as she was, she hadn't ruled out the fact that she, too, would end up at the office, but she'd have to see how the day went. After all, Kurt was there…

Later that afternoon, her phone buzzed on the nightstand beside her. She'd showered and then lay down with the intention of just resting for a little while, but she'd ended up falling asleep. As she focused on the phone beside her, she realized that this was the first time in a long while that she'd slept without dreaming. She smiled to herself as she reached for her phone.

 _I wonder if the dreams will stop now._

To her surprise, it wasn't Kurt on the phone, but Hirst. Her boss said that she'd just called to check and see how Jane was doing. "You should take at least a few days off," the other woman said.

With a laugh, Jane replied, "You obviously don't know me very well."

There was more laughter at the other end of the phone. "You and Agent Weller are like two peas in a pod, aren't you?" Hirst asked.

"Yeah. We're both a little stubborn."

"Well, just so you know, he showed up at work today and was sent straight to Medical to be cleared by our people. Just in case you're getting any ideas about doing the same."

"I'm at home," Jane assured her. "I've been resting for the last few hours. Hadn't decided what to do next. But I get the feeling that you'd have sent both of us to Medical even if we'd waited til next week to come back in."

"You're probably right," Hirst laughed. "Anyway, I'm glad you're doing alright, Jane. Y'all did a hell of a job yesterday. You should be proud."

"Oh, uh, it was—" She started to defer her boss' accolades, but Hirst saw it coming.

"And I know, Roman got away. But you stopped the attack, and you got Shepherd. Those two things are huge. As for your brother, well, we'll get him. We have the upper hand now."

"Yeah," Jane said quietly, rubbing her temple with her free hand and thinking about the moment when Roman had looked her in the eye.

"Bye, Jane," he'd said, and walked away. She hadn't meant to sigh, but Hirst heard it loud and clear.

"I'll let you go. I'm glad you're alright. Keep in touch, and get some rest. We'll need you to save the world again very soon, I'm sure." Hirst was winding down, and Jane was glad. She was suddenly very tired all over again.

"Thank you," Jane said. "I'll see you soon." As she ended the call, a text suddenly popped up on her screen.

 _How are you? Yes, I'm at the office – don't start. Hirst sent me to Medical to be poked and prodded again. Now waiting. It's so boring just sitting here._

With a grin, she answered immediately. _That's what you get for rushing right back to work._

 _Admit it, you're thinking of doing exactly the same thing, aren't you?_ He wasn't wrong.

 _Maybe. I just woke up from a nap. Not sure what I'm doing next._

 _Well, I can tell you that you should take it easy. But I know you, so I assume I'll see you here by the end of the day._

 _You're probably right. I'm going to get something to eat and then consider my next move._

 _Nice. I'll talk to you later, then._

 _Later._

She walked around her kitchen, but found that she wasn't really hungry. Grabbing an apple, then her jacket, keys and wallet, she headed out the door. _Admit it. You're heading right back to work at least partially because you want to see him._

 _Well, maybe. Or I could say that if Hirst's going to send me to Medical anyway, I might as well get it out of the way._ Jane smiled to herself as she walked to the subway. _Okay, he's a big reason why I'm heading back there. I'm okay with that._

It seemed that they were destined to miss each other that afternoon, however. When Jane arrived in Medical, Kurt was nowhere to be seen. He was talking to the doctor, they said. So the nurses started in on her, updating her chart. When she asked about him later, she was told that he'd been cleared while her tests had been underway. Smiling at the absurdity of their timing, she shook her head. It didn't matter. She'd see him afterwards. The team was meeting for celebratory drinks later, at his apartment, so she'd just catch up with him there.

From Medical she went to SIOC, which was relatively deserted. She popped her head into Hirst's office, finding her poring over papers at her desk. Her boss told her what she suspected when she looked around the deserted screens room. Kurt had been there, but she'd sent everyone home a little while ago. "As long as you're here, though, have a seat."

Ducking out of Hirst's office a little while later, Jane headed for the elevator. She pressed the button, checking the time and realizing that the team would already be at Kurt's place. For a second she considered texting him, but then decided she'd rather just show up and surprise him. It wasn't a real surprise, because he was expecting her, but even so, it would be fun.

The whole way there, images of the two of them from the past few days danced before her eyes. And then there were older images of them as well – only the happy ones. Still, she kept coming back to her favorite memory.

" _Jane… Don't move to California. Stay here… with me… I love you, Jane. I love you."_

It seemed more likely to be a dream than any of the actual dreams that she'd had about him, and yet no, this one was real. By the time she got off the subway, she couldn't contain the grin on her face. _He loves me. And I… I love him, too._

When she let herself into his apartment, the festivities were in full swing. After everything they'd all been through, it was a relief to see these people that she loved so relaxed and happy. While she wasn't nervous, exactly, the words she'd just discovered inside her were bursting to get out, and she wasn't going to be able to wait much longer to tell him. _I love you. I love you. I love you._

"I didn't think you were coming." He'd already closed most of the distance between where he'd stood with the others in the kitchen to the door by the time the words were out of his mouth.

"Can I talk to you for just a second? Outside." She motioned to the hallway with her head, and Kurt's face tensed slightly.

He closed the door behind them, and Jane fumbled with her words for a second, trying to figure out where to start. She was suddenly much more self-conscious than she'd imagined herself being, but that didn't change the urgency she felt to say the words out loud. She smiled, trying to collect herself so she could reassure Kurt, who now looked worried. Staring at the floor for a second, she centered herself before she began.

"So they said I could go anywhere."

Kurt leaned back against the opposite wall of the hallway, his arms across his chest as if braced for the worst.

"But this is where I wanna be." His mouth twitched into a smile now, and she felt her heart beating faster. A few more seconds passed, during which they just stared into each other's eyes, like they'd done so many times before. "I love you too, Kurt."

She drew in a deep breath, exhaling loudly and trying to find the rest of the words she'd planned to say. They seemed to have completely deserted her. Staring at the floor for only a few seconds, she looked up to find that he was no longer across the hall. Without stopping, he was moving toward her. "And I just…" But he was shaking his head at her, and his hand had already come up to her face as he leaned in to kiss her. No more words were required.

A few minutes later they re-entered the apartment to find that the rest of the team had decided to make a quick getaway. How had they known that it would be best for everyone? It didn't matter. As the door closed behind Patterson, the last one to say goodbye, Jane and Kurt looked at each other. _Are you thinking what I'm thinking?_ their expressions seemed to ask each other. In seconds, it was clear that they had been. Yes, it was time to make up for a lot of lost time.

XXX

The dream was different this time, Jane noted. She couldn't quite put her finger on why. As she found herself lying on her side, with Kurt's arms wrapped around her and his chest pressed against her back, she listened to him breathing gently near her ear. He was still asleep, she could just tell, and as much as she wanted to look back at him, she wasn't going to risk moving and upsetting the delicate balance of this dream. Of course, after the previous night, she wasn't sure it was necessary to hold onto these dreams anymore. After all, now they had the real thing. But she certainly had no complaints about seeing him while she slept.

It was amazing how far they'd come. From the day when he'd arrested her at gunpoint, to this. How in the world had they come full circle? It didn't seem possible. And yet, last night had been very real. She grinned to herself, remembering.

The arms around her tightened, and Kurt mumbled something in her ear. Her chuckle shook both of them, since he was holding onto her tightly. Turning slightly to look at him over her shoulder, she grinned and asked, "What was that?"

"Good morning," he mumbled, slightly more clearly, as he kissed her cheek. His eyes were still barely open. "I was afraid I'd dreamed last night, but I'm glad to see that you're real, and you're still here."

 _Wait. What? This isn't a dream?_

"I'm pretty sure I really got here last night, and we talked, and, uh…" She blushed slightly. "I know last night was real. I woke up and thought that _this_ was a dream, though. I'm still not convinced it's not."

He kissed her cheek again. "Last night was very real." He chuckled. "And unless I'm mistaken, this morning is real, too."

"Are you sure? I mean, the other times, I always thought they were real, until I woke up."

 _Shit. Did I say that out loud?_

"The other times?" Kurt smiled at her quizzically, and she blushed again.

Closing her eyes, she just shook her head and leaned her forehead against his face. _It doesn't matter now,_ she told herself, because it didn't. This time, it was real.

"I'd like to hear about this," he said gently. "But first, I want to tell you something."

Opening her eyes again, she turned onto her back so that she could peer directly into his. "What's that?" she asked quietly.

"I love you," he said simply. His smile was reverent, and she couldn't have stopped the joy that filled her face if she'd wanted to – which she didn't.

She was surprised how moved she was by those three words, even though it wasn't the first time she'd heard them. It was different this time. He was no longer asking her for something – not to move to California – but simply stating a fact.

"I love you, too." The words came out in a whisper. She was in awe of this moment in every way possible. Chuckling softly, she added, "You may have to pinch me."

"I'd rather kiss you. Would that be alright with you?" he asked.

Once again her face lit up. She nodded and Kurt leaned closer, slowly, until their lips met.

Later, Jane knew, they would go to work. There was still so much to be done – in their line of work, they would never really be finished. But before that, there was this blissful moment in time, when for once she wasn't trapped in a dream that felt too perfect, one from which she would wake up and find herself alone all over again. Finally, she'd ended up where she belonged.

 _A/N: And yes, ignore ALLLLLL the crap that comes after this on the show. Or just choose selectively from the happy moments of s3 without the 18 month separation. In any case, thank you for sticking with me on this one. Life happened around me and it took a lot longer than expected to get it done. Along the way I learned that though I wanted to just write plain fluff, I seem to be incapable of that. Attaching this fic to the show's plot was fun, but it meant I had to get to the correct stopping point. But it's been a fun ride, inventing little scenes for Jane and Kurt in Jane's dreams. I hope you enjoyed it. :)_


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